Just found out I've wasted seven months and a f*ckwad of cash chasing a fairy story. A quick glance at this: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1950821&page=8 will tell you all you need to know.

On the one hand, an "industry" set up by Gordon and his pals turns out to be 1: a scam and 2: empty of any work opportunities and on the other, the main culprit scammer turns out to be a donor to CallMeDave and his cronies.

How do I feel? This country's just f*cked, if you ask me…

an infinity of 👿

God, that's really unlucky, you must be spitting feathers! I see the posts are suggesting contacting Martin Lewis or Jeremy Vine or what about that other chap – Dominic Littlewood? The Guardian has Tony Levene. Maybe that's the way to go? In the meantime, you will have learned a lot so maybe see about a job, with perhaps a lower salary and training on the job as you go? Just some ideas…

Is this something to do with hips by any chance?

You've lost some money and wasted some time. Be angry, but don't let it get you down too much.

not reading all that. whats the blurb?

Govt sets up a governing body. Governing body oversees private company "Training Centres" for Energy Assessors (Commercial, Domestic) to provide Energy Performance Certificates for house sales/rents.

Main company with offices all over the UK goes tits up. Turns out to be a scam. Main scammer donor to the Conservative Party.

Turns out that if you didn't get on the bandwagon three years ago, it's a waste of time – not even established practitioners can get enough work to make it pay.

That is a bummer.

I'm not surprised that there isn't much work & the cost of doing EPCs etc. is going down though – they seem to be shockingly simple, and largely done with automated software nowadays, so I'm guessing the people doing them can charge very little. And there doesn't seem to be much checking – I mean our one suggested that the best way to make our house more energy efficient was to put some insulation in the cavity walls (which the house doesn't have, built in 1790 out of big lumps of stone).

Although the last surveyor we employed gave us a report including telling us to get the chimney swept for the open fire, in a house with a 4 bar gas fire, so I guess looking at houses isn't exactly a highly professional profession in general.

Joe

Typical of this government – all spin and headlines and no substance behind it all. Its going to get worse in the lead up to the election.

Indeed jj55 Labour TOSH
its like that old socialist analogy of paying a load of people to dig holes and then paying another load to keep filling them in and so on- keep the illusion of an 'active economy' going….

in terms of these assessor / qualifications things, in my view its a very slippery slope to go down- for some reason quasi-governmental (or maybe private) companies invent a whole set of rules on whatever part of industry which means that a load of people have to pay to train to be qualified under those rules…. then the rules are re-invented every year or so and you have to pay again to be re-trained in the new system and so on!

didn't they do something similar on home information packs?

Its pretty disgusting.
There's so much profiteering in the energy/sustainability sector.
I'm a low carbon consultant and and air conditioning energy inspector accredited through CIBSE. I didn't pay a penny though as it was done through work.
The LCC training took me a day and the exam was an hour .That(along with years of engineering experience!) allows me to certificate large complex commercial buildings. However, if I want to certficate simple domiciles then I must do a course is 6 odd weeks and costs thousands!

F*CK!

I think my mates brother did this!!

Mr Woppit i havent read all the blurb, did your training in bristol.

im sure my mates brother finsihed couple months ago

can you send me your email (mines in my profile) im seeing him later, i might get him to have a chat with you….

cheers and sorry to hear about this!

Can't see your email in your profile…

I do love the way folk are blaming labour for a scam run by a tory party donor!

The torys will scrap the HIP IIRC, so probably trying to use his influence

I do love the way folk are blaming labour for a scam run by a tory party donor!

I love the way people are upset because they can't now go into a job which was basically scamming people because they have now been scammed.

Sucks mate. commercial EPC was never gonna take off though.

In my small office of 100 engineers 2 or 3 are now EPC accreditors. There is no way they'd outsource when us monkeys could do it for free!

Should think the more private sector would be similar. It aint a particularly big business…