Hello,
Thought I'd post this thread regarding our experience of National Utility Solutions:
Initially we received an email offering us the chance to tender for a 2 year contract worth at least 400 jobs per year for two years. (Contract LN222) As a new business we were very interested. I spoke to Matthew White who went through the basics of the contract with me and got his boss to ring me later. Had the phone call from the boss who again went through the process with me. Both calls lasted at least 20 minutes each.
Had a conference call on Friday 1st April with three people from NUS, lasted about half an hour where I told them what services we could offer, prices etc. I asked why the contract had come up for tender and they said it was because in previous years engineers had to travel a distance and they wanted to have contracts for engineers within a 25 mile radius. They said they wanted to get the ball rolling as they had a meeting with their clients on the Monday and they wanted an engineer in place. When they rang to say we had won the contract we were obviously very excited. An econtract was emailed through for us to sign. All looked ok and official. Anyway, I went straight to the bank and transferred the money.
Tuesday the following week we received a receipt for the money and a welcome pack - complete with spelling mistakes. But hey? anyone can make a mistake can't they? We also very strangely received an almost identical email from the very first one we had been sent saying do we want to tender for a new contract - same number as the one we had just won!
Have rang NUS a few times to be told that they are sorting admin out, i.e. registering our gas safe cert, public liability etc. Only sniff of a job we have had is via a company called G3 energy (who do not get very good comments when I researched them, non payment being the main one). They said NUS had contacted them with our details and could we do a CP12 at a property an hour away? I have arranged it for next week but am trying to convince the boss not to do it, I think its too good to be true and we were dazzled by a big contract.
Further research has revealed that Nat Utility Solutions (not National) is registered at the London address given on the welcome pack but has in fact only been established since November 2010.
I fear we have been taken for fools and would strongly recommend others not to part with their money. I will keep you posted on events and hope that I can be proved wrong.