LGVTrainer:
Been in Chelmsford for years and have never heard of them or seen a truck at the test centre.
44 Tonne Ton:
Another dodgy lot in Chelmsford, must be something in the water there!
That would imply there was already at least 1 other dodgy lot here. Please enlighten us…
There certainly was John, can’t remember their name off hand but they took hundreds of thousands of pounds in deposits off wannabe drivers then went skint! You must know who I mean, you’re in that neck of the woods?
Yep thats Highway HGV’s paperwork you see him holding in his hands throughout the video. I know, I have the same paperwork but I must have been one of the luckier ones who actually got them to pay for my training.
I had the exact same experience as the guy in the video, when I arrived at the training centre I was told that the training had been booked but was still to be paid! After a heated telephone conversation with John or Tom or whoever it was I was allowed to take my training.
THESE men made obscene amounts of money shattering the dreams of people trying to better themselves.
Greedy John Dawson and Tony Jordan are now the wealthy ex-bosses of Amraf Training Plc.
Amraf offered computer training at £4,000 a time but went bust last month, leaving its students devastated and in many cases crippled by debts.
After we first wrote about Amraf, a message posted on the internet caught our eye. “Unless a major media organisation takes up our cause we are well and truly shafted,” wrote someone calling himself simply Phil. “Watchdog would rather talk about unhappy holidaymakers and other little scams - anything but 4,000-plus students that have been shafted.”
Well, Phil, we suspect you’re shafted whatever we write, but we can at least expose this disaster.
We went along to the creditors’ meeting in Victoria, Central London, where the directors faced the victims’ wrath. Some had not even started their training when the company was put into administration on October 1.
“They took my money on September 26, well knowing that they would not be able to deliver anything,” one irate student told the meeting.
Things became more hostile when it was revealed just how much money had been raked in by directors Dawson, 45, and Jordan, 37.
In 1999 they paid themselves more than £500,000 in salaries and dividends. Last year it was almost £1million - more than half Amraf’s net profit.
From January to August this year, despite the steadily deteriorating trading position of the company, they still found almost £200,000 to split between them.
“You are taking wadges of cash from these people here who paid you in good faith,” came a shout from the floor.
Dawson, who owned 95 per cent of Amraf’s shares, pleaded innocence.
“There was never any intention, whether you believe it or not, for this to happen,” he told the meeting. “Many other training companies have gone to the wall. I have a clear conscience.” Then a question framed by Sorted shed more light on this fat cat. Under pressure, Dawson admitted serving 120 hours’ community service for a fraud conviction. He’d forged an exam paper.
Amraf, based in Basildon, Essex, had been fattened up in the hope they could flog it for big bucks.
At its peak it had a dozen training centres around the country, but the sale collapsed.
When the administrator was called in, it was losing £400,000 a month. Students had paid a total of £2.3 million for courses they cannot now complete. They’ve been warned to expect a return of just 10p in the pound. As Phil put it, they’re shafted.
No wonder Dawson and Jordan left the creditors’ meeting flanked by two enormous minders.
We expect the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to ensure these men are quickly banned from running companies. And we mean quickly, because Dawson has turned his “talents” to a new operation.
Earlier this month, he became director of a company called Silvergate Training Ltd. Just thought you should know.
