Posts

Erm ok, bungee jumping? 

Top post mate, and I guess it's easy for us to have preconceived ideas about prison and media soft sentence stories, having never been in one. 

Found a solution for the car: G4s Company Cars 

I just can't see you watching Bid Up Tv and phoning in for a pair of replica Princess Diana ear rings

There's so much more to watch, look at Eastenders  Was it Max or wasn't it???

Hi Ray, thought I'd give this a bump. So are you a G4S employee yet?

Couldn't resist showing you this. Transfer to G4S Mexico, you could be racing round in a G4S Police car  No doubt only a matter of time before the traffic cops get outsourced

Great for employees, bad for business 

Am I the only one that thinks this country has too many bank holidays and disruption 

as always, thanks to Tom Fishburne

We go from economic Armageddon, then it's talk of green shoots of recovery, slowly but surely the news gets more and more optimistic...

Then it that phrase appears again. Housing Bubble 

It seems now we are heading for another housing bubble as house prices increase, and now the top brass from the Bank of England are worried.

I know economies are cyclic and recessions come around at regular intervals, but wouldn't it be nice if we had a few years of calm and optimism first before the next wave of doom and gloom hits us. Or is it a simple case that we haven't learnt (or unable to learn) from our past mistakes and boom and bust is inevitable?

I think Gas Safe would be an ideal body to get involved. It is established, respected, and membership of the Consumer Code Scheme would be an added benefit for it's members, rather than any extra cost. Whether the membership cost is viable to join Gas Safe itself is a different story and I suppose down to the individual member. I'd be surprised if they didn't come on-board in the near future.

Having a single remit is fine, for example the Property Ombudsmen have signed up to the Consumer Code purely for Estate Agents and the buying and selling of houses. Estate agents can be an emotive subject at the best of times, but if you know an agent is a member of the Ombundsman, who in turn has signed up and agreed to a specific code of practice, which is all about consumer protection, then this can only be good news for the end consumer. It's also a good selling point for the agent, who can re-assure any prospective clients that they are members of a Trading Standards regulated Ombudsman, and show them what rights and course of action the consumer has if it all goes sour.

Another body with a straightforward remit is the British Association of Removers, so their members include the likes of Pickfords, down to small removal companies.

I could set up the Federation of Marketing Directories tomorrow, create a nice logo and give a nice perception of re-assurance. But I would have my work cut out, and spend a lot of time, money and energy to create a genuine organisation that would satisfy the Trading Standards Consumer Code of Conduct.

The whole concept really is to regulate and simplify the consumer protection landscape, and bring the myriad of different schemes and organisations under one umbrella, and signing up to a regulated, independent code of conduct. It's a mammoth undertaking, and isn't going to happen overnight, but it's slowly gaining traction.

Out of interest, here are the latest organisations either going for approval or have expressed an interest:

www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/Prospectivecodesponsors.cfm

Maybe this time next year we'll see Gas Safe up there (along with TACCA) 

My workhorse lappie is starting to creak. Always used to swear by HP's but last 2 Pavillions have both suffered from overheating probs. Prob dust, but blasting out with air doesn't seem to clear it and I can't be bothered to start opening the thing up. 

My win 7 seems to be dogged with mem probs, which with 16GB is nuts. Quad core, but open photoshop and 2 chrome sessions with outlook and it grinds to a halt. Can't imagine life without an IPhone and writing this on an iPad. So for the first time ever, I'd seriously consider a Mac.

But I am die hard windows, so guess I need to spend some time in Currys playing with a mac and see how I get on

Thanks Trena, and just to clarify, we are just content publishers and provide tools for organisations to manage data, so we can't claim any credit for setting up the actual Consumer Code, this is down to the Trading Standards Institute and the OFT.

Ref your TACCA organisation, this is just the sort of body that should be on-board. Why not badger them and ask them to investigate joining. They can get more info here:

www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/ConsumerCodes