Over the past year we have received some negative press in the form of Internet Forum sites and BBC Watchdog.
We launched a campaign at the beginning of 2008 to see if we could work with a number of the Internet Forums and Administrators to resolve any genuine issues that any of our students had. After a thorough investigation a number of Internet Forums found that the majority of the comments that were being made were untrue and defamatory to our business. The Administrators began to examine the credibility of all the allegations.
We are now pleased to say that after they approached a number of websites to investigate the validity of the comments, they found that many of the comments were totally false and were not even placed by people who were our students. Up to date we have successfully prosecuted several companies and individuals.
You will see from the following information that a number of websites removed unfounded and defamatory content, resulting in forum threads being closed down in their entirety. We now know that you cannot possibly believe everything you read on the Internet.
Chronology of online forum postings that were challenged and/or removed.
Out of 17 cases where Internet Forum Threads have been closed down or edited
12 out of 17 were based on deception and lies
3 out of 17 were unfounded comments
2 out of 17 contained defamatory content
1. Consumer Action Group - "Spicey v Skillstrain"
Started May 2008 - Closed January 2009 due to deception.
2. Consumer Action Group - CANCELMY COURSES SKILLSTRAIN PLZ
Started December 2007 - Closed August 2008 due to false claims and after a thorough investigation we found that the "student" was not listed on our records.
3. Consumer Action Group - SKILLSTRAIN
Started January 2008 - Closed August 2008 due to deception
4. Money Savings Expert
Started Spring 2008 - Closed September 2008 due to unfounded comments
5. BensCamera.com
Started July 2007 - Closed August 2008 due to false claims and later discovered that this was a non-existing student.
6. Take Legal Advice
Started March 2007 - Closed August 2008 due to false claims and non existing students
7. Facebook - SkillsTrain "Jump on the SkillsTrain scam"
Started May 2008 - Closed September 2008 due to defamatory content by students which were non-existent
8. MONEY SAVINGS EXPERT - SkillsTrain
Started January 2008 - Closed October 2008 due to lack of evidence to support claims
9. Facebook group 2
Started October 2008 - removed by Facebook soon after
10. Digital Trends
Started September 2006 - Present. We have attempted to work with the forum editor to have defamatory content removed from this group but they are a USA based website and do not comply with UK law. Comments have been removed when we have proved that some of the comments are not made by our students.
11. SkillsTrain, "The Dark Side"
This Internet post was edited and we later found that it was linked to a competitor.
12. Watchdog
BBC programme aired October 2008. The Administrators of the websites - Forums have since proved that the cases featured on the programme to be based on lies and deception.
13. Consumer Action Group - Skillstrain
Started July 2007 - Closed August 2008 after a thorough investigation proving the comments to be unfounded and libellous claims.
14. Consumer Action Group - Cancel my Course
Started December 2007 - Closed August 2008 due to malicious and unfounded comments
15. "SKILLSTRAIN SCHEIDEGGER - TIME FOR YOU TO FIGHT BACK"
Started September 2007 - Closed September 2008 in it's entirety due to unfounded comments
16. PC Advisor - forum SkillsTrain ? information needed please
Started October 2007 - Present. This forum has been greatly edited due to defamatory comments.
17. Ciao - Review site
Started 2005 - August 2008. One student who had posted defamatory comments on this review site apologised to the company and removed any defamatory comments.
