HS Direct Ltd in Sheffield

Signed up with HS Direct as sales man called, looking to punt CHAS registration and offer us a safety package for our business.

Got setup in around 4 weeks after paying £840 for a years worth of some portal they are provided by a 3rd party. We NEEDED the safety package along side our CHAS application as they could not do it without this at a cost of £350.

Dealt with Nigel Brancker for the CHAS application in which they needed all our details. Spent around a month and a half gather all needed information for the application in which they required another week or two to prepare and type up an email which I had to copy and paste and send to an assessor.

The CHAS assessor appointed came back looking for additional information, Nigel went off to speak with other 'consultants' within the company to revise a response. A response was typed up and again I was to copy and paste and send to the CHAS assessor. Response sent.

CHAS assessor came back again to advise that we still hadn't really answered his question, the question was in relation to supporting evidence HS Direct / Nigel Brancker had put together.

Came back to Nigel and he advised he would look out some more information, put together another response and send it. Response typed up, copied, pasted and sent back to the assessor.

Assessor returned again to advise the question still was not answered and there was a deadline to close the application. After a few days Nigel came back to me and said what we have here is a difficult assessor, we should lapse this application, wait 4 weeks then do a new submission and HOPE for a new CHAS assessor.

I'm now a little over a year on, not registered under CHAS and not really able to go after contract which require this and in-turn unable to really use the portal the £350 bought me.

On top of that CHAS still billed me £180 for the assessment which failed and lapsed. Nigel nor anyone at HS Direct informed me that this is the case. Being mindful we relied on HS Direct to deal with the whole process, as it was sold to us.

I have returned to HS Direct and said we are a year on, I'm getting debt letters from a CHAS for the £180, in total I'm down £1,120 a year on with absolutely nothing to show for it. I have given them the opportunity to wipe the slate clean, lets start again fresh, you can see I did not get use of the portal and I did not pass CHAS due to the information you submitted.

The only response I got was an argument over the phone with Emma Sheriff in regards to the above, on top of that not only trying to sell me the safety first package again as a renewal but trying to sell me some legal stuff for employees. I asked her to speak with Nigel and get him to call me, heard nothing. A month passed and another guy called me asking are you looking to renew?

I emailed Nigel looking for a response within 14 days, he has returned to be again advising I need to take the £350 package out for him to do the original job they messed up.

I'm keen to hear an actual response from them without the sales pitch.