 Poster: A snowHead
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Actually I was a little dissapointed with the programme. Understandably it was recorded a couple of weeks ago and so didn't mention the developments with the company shutting up shop (web, phone). But I thought there might be a footnote at the end to add that, and provide a bit more information on what the police or trading standards are doing.
The programme did confirm the 'character' of Reynard - although it relied on 15 year old previous recordings of silence to do so  The bare faced nerve of the guy to ask Schools to pay more and STILL not make the bookings. He seems to be a shark who knows the angles in this business. Setting up Skiing Europe Ltd and then trading as a sole trader (trading as Skiing Europe) is the start of a lot of deceit.
I really think its up to 'experts' in the industry (like AITO) to keep companies like SE honest, because as has been said before, you do not check the terms of every service you buy and cannot be an expert is every area you operate. Yes, paying 100k deposits is not the same as buying a kettle - so these transactions should be made through a central legal service (LEA legal department? - although its also been said they would be fodder for the wolf too).
The cashflow in this standard model of 'pay up front' is also stunning. Just assume 50 group trips a year(minimum) with 50 people each, thats over £2m in deposit floating around. A tempting pension plan if ever there was one, especially when you can blame the recession and poor Euro exchange rates.
However, I would not want to be CR right now - he's too old to be dodging the law again. It'll definitely get him this time, one way or another. His legacy could be to die in prison with his name further in the toilet. What a life.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Stephen101, Thanks for your insight. It is helpful to get a grip on some of the legal process and where the case could be successful.
I fear the cost of going to court - said to be £40k - may prevent most heading that way. A class action might split the legal costs and make a case more likely but would it change the priority of those in the long queue of debtors?
i.e. Action A - Go it alone and be near the front of the queue. B - Class action - higher up the queue or further down the list of debtors?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Stephen101, I agree that the exposure was, in itself, useful.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Hurtle, Agree with you. Having worked for them in previous years. I decided that after last years performance I wasn't prepared to work for them again.
Thankfully my suspicions were proved correct in my case but I feel sorry for all those who have lost alot of money.
I thought the program although highlighting his track record and providing statements and interviews into a small number of disapointed customers didn'y seem to go far enough and certainly didn't give any real hope of resolutions to those who had lost money so far.
Maybe this was due to pending investigations by the police and the fact that if I heard correctly that the company had not actually ceased trading which is where alot of the issues were coming from with regards to paying out compensation unless taken through further lengthy and costly legal action.
The program sounded more as a WARNING TO FUTURE POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS.
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| Shimmy Alcott wrote: |
| achilles, I've had crime reference numbers for theft from my property. Maybe as you reported it "missing" rather than "stolen"? |
Go to put my hand up here. Initially I was given an incident number - just received a letter from the police - which now gives me a 'crime reference number'.
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maggi, just google "01404 871316" or "EX24 6DL" and you'll come up with all sorts of stuff... holiday cottages, 18-hole golf course... oh, and quite a few jobs too.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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noskitrip,
I suspect the real objective would be to trigger the insurance arrangements as a result of Reynard declaring or being forced into bankruptcy, given that past form probably indicates that his assets may well have already disappeared elsewhere. A class action applying for judgement in respect of all his debts may not be possible given that the facts in each case are probably different - so the best way of proceeding may be just a few actions for the larger more crystal clear debts. But working out the best tactics really is something best left to the lawyers who have more access to the facts - hopefully they are talking to each other.
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altis,
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| Book keeping experience would be an advantage |
certainly made me  !
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Stephen101, thanks, legal talk is not cheap and is being funded from the educational budgets. So that will bring its own pressure and discussion on the probability of winning a case versus the cost and time of chasing it.
Radio 4 listen again for anyone who needs the link is http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0112gv5
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| achilles wrote: |
| Shimmy Alcott wrote: |
| achilles, I've had crime reference numbers for theft from my property. Maybe as you reported it "missing" rather than "stolen"? |
Go to put my hand up here. Initially I was given an incident number - just received a letter from the police - which now gives me a 'crime reference number'. |
cheers for you honesty though
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Shimmy Alcott, I do my best. Mostly 
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Poster: A snowHead
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Gillian, Shame but there were quite a few quotes from pupils at Reading and a London School (I forget which). Radio4 didn't get any comment from SE at all either. Nor direct quotes from any hotels or ski instructors (only 2nd hand reports). A coach company apparently provided input, but that might have been second hand too. Radio4 didn't hold back in pointing the finger at CR in particular though.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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snowjoe, there was a coach owner on there from a previous trip had to take CR to court and eventually got £8k out of £10k owed. There was also a holiday rep, the one that was almost arrested but a teacher paid a previous unpaid bill for ski hire on his credit card so she wasnt arrested in the end.
Gillian, what a shame after all your effort and I suppose the kids would be disappointed aswell 
at least Chris Reynards and Skiing Europes antics have been exposed a bit further though
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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only good for exposing CR for what he is.
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| snowjoe wrote: |
| leedsunited wrote: |
snowjoe,
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Schools certainly were not negligent.
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They where certainly negligent in their due dilligence, this guy had history going back many years. |
All I can add there is that SE also had trading history going back years where things were running more or less fine and they were LEA approved as a TO specialising in School groups. No doubt there were also many previous trip recommendations too. Without CR being a Director of SE until recently, there was little visibility of his involvement (unless you recognise his mugshot), and as we know, Googling for "skiing europe" is not so easily done and previously didn't register much. Add to that the nice looking AITO Bond and you'd think this was a solid choice. Only time has shown that to be different and hind-sight is an exact science. I doubt CR wanted SE to fail, but when it started to he seems to have resorted to previous form and in desperation has shafted a lot of people.
Also, has anyone been refunded? I'd have thought this thread would have heard something about it if so.
Radio4 in 25 mins  |
I agree with this. Previous trips we ran with them were good, and really there was no need to question them. However thankfully (although i didn't think it at the time) we got left in the lurch during the french strikes and their unwillingness to pay for the ferry (which i had to pay) was a real warning!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Stephen101,
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What if they relied upon the LEA to approve the TO?
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Ok i apologise, pherhaps i should have used the term LEA, but somebody some where is responsible for either not assesing the approved list on a regular basis or not putting any procedures to follow when allocating large amounts of money to an outside company. I would suggest that if each approved contractor had to re submit its approval on a yearly basis CR / SE would have stood out like a sore thumb, a simple Dunn & Bradstreet report would have highlighted his financial position immediately.
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you are quite happy to accuse teachers/schools of taking bribes/negligence
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No i am not happy to accuse anybody of something that is not proven, with regards to bribes, i would call what you are referring to as "inducements" all of which should not be part of the buying process / decision, the words used previously to justify these inducements are "inspection trips" again i do not disagree that they should happen i just do not agree that the TO should provide them, the LEA / schools should fund them and this way there is no conflict of interest when it comes to deciding which TO the school books with.
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But then you are not a teacher basher are you?
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No i am not but i do feel that some (a very small minority) need to take a long hard look in the mirror over the position they find themselves in.
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An update following todays news articles...
The skiing europe/Chris Reynard totaliser now stands at:
February Half Term
Reading Grammar School - 100 children - £90,000 (www.getreading.co.uk)
Tavistock College - 120 children - £90,000 (BBC News)
Tonbridge Grammar School - 33 children - c£27,000? (www.thisiskent.co.uk)
Alcester Grammar School - ? children - £14,000 (BBC News)
Easter Hols
Meole Brace School - 52 children - £41,000 (www.shropshirestar.com)
Mount Grace School - 80 children - £63,000 (BBC News)
Beechwood Park School - 39 children - £25,000? (BBC News)
Purbeck - 42 children - £33,600 (BBC News)
Ferndown - c28 children? - c£22,400 (BBC News/This thread)
St Helena School, Colchester £12,000 (http://teachersupport.info)
Girvan Academy - 21 children £11,000 (BBC News)
Salisbury Cathedral School - ?
Wellacre - ?
Quinton Kynaston - 21 children - £15,000 (BBC News)
Edgbarrow - ?
Cardinal Heenan - 23 children £17,000 (BBC News)
Queen's College - ?
Oliver Bullock - ?
King Edward VI - ?
Hockerill - ?
Charlton - ?
Chinthurst Prep, Surrey - definately affected - 47 people, c £40,000? (BBC News)
The Manor Prep, Abingdon - ? - approx 20 people? C£18,000
Tile Hill, Coventry - paid again for coaches (BBC News)
St Thomas Moore, Bedford - paid again for accomodation(BBC News)
Flint High School, Flintshire - paid again for coach travel (BBC News)
St Edwards school, Essex - £7,000 - accomodation (BBC News)
Kingsmead School, Somerset - 53 children -£41,000 (BBC News)
Crispin School, Somerset - Hotels etc ('considerable expense' BBC News)
St Dunstans School, Somerset - Hotels etc ('considerable expense' BBC News)
Then factor in unpaid staff, coach companies, lift passes, ski hire & hotels from the trips that did get away.
Approx (at least) 700 children and £600,000 and counting...
Last edited by After all it is free  on Wed 18-05-11 19:52; edited 5 times in total
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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After nearly 1,400 entries and over 60,000 views can I also say well done to those of you who've been there since page 1 - ccl, pam w, fatbob, D G Orf and noskitrip, well done for keeping the faith...
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yeah i saw its still p1! i didnt see the skiing europe website up - down i assume
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| noskitrip wrote: |
| bar shaker wrote: |
Blimey, just come back to this and you are still rattling on.
If Reynard has not been in court yet, he has definitely spent it all.
Any talk on clauses and regulation is like pissing into a head wind. |
I will rattle on for some time yet, my motivation is 1. to try and get £900 back from Reynard 2. advertise and tell the world about this mess so they don't get dragged in to the sorry tale.
Reynard moans on about sobotage. I think sending out hundreds of emails with links to the news stories to interested schools, scouts and business is rattling and I have a lot more of rattle left yet!  [about £900 worth] |
So are you just sitting on your hands, hoping £900 drops onto the door mat or are you talking him to court?
Far, far too late. The money has gone now.
The rest is a waste of bandwidth.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Far, far too late. The money has gone now.
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And unfortunately i wouldnt be waiting for the insurance companies to come riding over the hill any time soon, they will be far to busy exploring every single caveat that will enable them to avoid paying out
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I've emailed my MP today. Not personally affected but what is the point of AITO - doesnt seem like much financial protection going on to me? Before the radio broadcast today i wasnt sure when CR had become diss-associated with AITO. Seems it wasnt that long ago so all those schools we know about probably booked while Skiing Europe was still under AITO protection. Why on earth are the parents and children left financially stranded then???
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You know it makes sense.
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Hi.
I've picked up on this late on and haven't read through 35 pages; but I'm a teacher who has organised plenty of trips in the past in the private school sector, but I heard R4 today. As far as I know, individual schools are not allowed to book trips unless the organiser is LEA approved, simply because their insurance for such trips is provided by the LEA. I can understand a busy teacher at the school going through the list of approved providers, giving them (including SE) a call and going from there. Yes, it seems pretty thick not to look it up on a website for yourself-personally I would not book without knowing the resort, location, size and altitude of hotel, ski in/out arrangements, who the lessons were with etc, but there you go. Perhaps SE built up a reputation over a few years with LEAs and local hotels/ski schools etc to give themselves a good name-and then picked this season to run off with the cash.
Who's to blame-morally, a combination of the LEA and school organiser. Legally, probably the LEA for just rubber-stamping their annual approval.
BTW, their website is a shocker. Just looking at it, I wouldn't have touched them with a bargepole.
Good luck to those who lost money-I really hope it doesn't put them off skiing for life.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| snowhound wrote: |
| BTW, their website is a shocker. Just looking at it, I wouldn't have touched them with a bargepole. |
If you mean www.skiing-europe.net that isn't it - looks like a link farm. The SE site has been taken down.
Last edited by Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name: on Wed 18-05-11 22:28; edited 1 time in total
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Poster: A snowHead
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snowhound - did you see it still up? i googled it and couldnt. it was like the first every websites ever made on the internet. ever!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Bode Swiller/Togger
Yeah, I did this mean this one. Sorry, late entrant and sorry if any of my points have been made before. Anyway, if I was the owner of this site I which was top of the Google search for this rip-off merchant, I'd change my search profile sharpish!!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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leedsunited,
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No i am not happy to accuse anybody of something that is not proven, with regards to bribes, i would call what you are referring to as "inducements" all of which should not be part of the buying process / decision, the words used previously to justify these inducements are "inspection trips" again i do not disagree that they should happen i just do not agree that the TO should provide them, the LEA / schools should fund them and this way there is no conflict of interest when it comes to deciding which TO the school books with.
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On 14 April
Great Post and i still stand by the term bribe, some may call it inducement, sweetner or freebie but in my mind it is a bribe and in accepting whatever you wish to call it you put yourself and your school in a compromising positionb, who pays for it, did it come from SE profits or was it chiseled from the funds already provided by schools?
Are there two leedunited - one who is French with a sense of humour and isn't a teacher basher and another who....... We need to be told
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Some websites, including http://skiing-europe.com , have been saved by the Wayback machine at the Internet Archive.
Quoting from the Wayback machine "http://skiing-europe.com has been crawled 35 times going all the way back to October 28, 2002."
Wikipedia has some interesting words on the legal status of the Wayback machine. Its archived data has been used in court cases, but, its archived data may violate copyright in some places and so the Wayback machine will delete archives when necessary.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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hang on a minute, we let all this teacher free inspection trip inducement stuff die down and I even deleted my posts on it, and now Stephen101 could not help but use it again to make a point in having a pop at leedsunited  I think I might go and add back the posts I deleted on the subject, or re-post them as new posts
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| daveyladboy wrote: |
| After nearly 1,400 entries and over 60,000 views can I also say well done to those of you who've been there since page 1 - ccl, pam w, fatbob, D G Orf and noskitrip, well done for keeping the faith... |
And I do have a life as well 
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rayscoops, I have no idea why Stephen101 brought the matter up again, referring back over a month to do so. Perhaps he feels that there is not much new to add to this thread, pending any court case that may arise, but he rather craves the attention he has found here, and so has to say something. I do think that the question of whether teacher inspection trips are 'bribes' is a distraction from the main thrust of this thread, and suggest that leedsunited and Stephen101 give that a rest here, and raise a new thread if they really must.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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achilles, I was only joking  , but I found it strange as it is a distraction to the issues that relate to parents getting their money back, from whom ever - school, LEA, Insurance, SE/CR
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achilles, To quote Basil Fawlty, "he started it"
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"inducements" all of which should not be part of the buying process / decision, the words used previously to justify these inducements are "inspection trips" again i do not disagree that they should happen i just do not agree that the TO should provide them, the LEA / schools should fund them and this way there is no conflict of interest when it comes to deciding which TO the school books with.
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All i have ever tried to question is that TO's, whoever they are, should not be providing inspection trips as it can / will have an affect on the buying process whatever anybody on here says to the contrary, the LEA should fund them - end off.
rayscoops,
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but I found it strange as it is a distraction to the issues that relate to parents getting their money back
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All I have ever tried to explain is that any inducements, as some ie Insurance companies may call them, could be used as part of the overall defence with regards to refunding monies.
On that note i will say no more
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FAQ
