 Poster: A snowHead
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wigan, as it happens I agree that it sounds a little high, however I suspect that this might be due to the kids covering the cost of accompanying teachers in addition to their own costs. I mentioned Earlier that the Christian Group Oak Hall run trips to Lauterbrunnen for a much more reasonable price, Coach plus Accomodation comes in at about £380 add in a ski pass Jungfrau region 6 day with current exchange rate for an under 16 in a group about £110 and ski hire (from Oak hall at just £53 for the week) Plus instruction (5 2 hour lessons Oak hall £58 ) and you come in at a shade over £600 but then you need to allow for accompanying adults profit margin and so on. with 100 kids however theres a fairly healthy £26,000 cut to take those from !
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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If his profit levels are to be believed , £875is £700 for the holiday and all costs including every thing. £175 is CR's bit , based on his £400,000/£2,000,000 profit to turnover.
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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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Kids with school parties will also be in lessons all day, as they need to be supervised.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I'd say that was within possibility based on the prices I quoted, which does beg the question, where has all that money gone ?
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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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Hells Bells, as I understand it the Instructors were hired in the UK by SE so I guess no problems there, I just used Oak Hall as an example as to what is possible and the sort of costs it can be achived at, if you are willing to pack the kids into dorms with more than 4 to a room the prices can be reduced even further
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| D G Orf wrote: |
| Hells Bells, as I understand it the Instructors were hired in the UK by SE so I guess no problems there, I just used Oak Hall as an example as to what is possible and the sort of costs it can be achived at, if you are willing to pack the kids into dorms with more than 4 to a room the prices can be reduced even further |
More profit and heli trips.
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| Hells Bells wrote: |
| Kids with school parties will also be in lessons all day, as they need to be supervised. |
A teenager ski boy was promised £200 a week [didnt get paid] with board and lodging was the one planned to look after my teenager son. I was not too bothered as my son is 6 foot tall and can cope. I would be more worried with 9 year olds.
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| D G Orf wrote: |
| I'd say that was within possibility based on the prices I quoted, which does beg the question, where has all that money gone ? |
Headline price is higher because they offered additional benefits that other TOs did not
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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 wrote: |
[
A teenager ski boy was promised £200 a week [didnt get paid] with board and lodging was the one planned to look after my teenager son. I was not too bothered as my son is 6 foot tall and can cope. I would be more worried with 9 year olds. |
Do you mean an 18/19 year old qualified Alpine Instructor? Just wondered, since word choice can convey such different meanings.
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Tue 21-06-11 21:39; edited 1 time in total
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rayscoops,
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Headline price is higher because they offered additional benefits that other TOs did not
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Maybe and maybe not, it's relatively easy to organise a trip to watch some ice hockey or similar events if you know they are on and not far away, the Oak Hall people in Lauterbrunnen seem to have no problems coping with a bunch of kids so if they can do so for the prices I quoted I don't think it unreasonable to suppose that other could, in the end it comes down to how much money you can get away with charging just to do a bit of organising, SE from their stated returns seems to have done as little as possible for a 20% profit
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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D G Orf, I do not mean additional bebefits for the kids on the trip, I was referring to the additional benefits that are available for those orgainising/booking the trip ... but we are not allowed to mention them/that here 
lightningdan alluded to the issue
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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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I don't think the inclusive price is that much different to other organised group TOs and yes it has to cover the staff/carer placements. It's a matter of a few £'s difference each and its just not the issue here (a 20% profit is nothing compared to other business) .... it just doesn't matter whether it was good value or bad value if the trip doesn't happen at all! Then to rub salt into that wound - noone seems to be able to recover the money and SE are certainly not paying any back, afaics.
You can point fingers and twist things all you like, but at the end it was a mess of CR and SE making and they ain't doing much to recompense anyone until forced and the that seems to be painfully slow to happen. And the so called bond seems useless unless/until the company is folded. To say the groups cancelled and it was their fault when they were packed and waiting is nuts. Even the ones who cancelled earlier did so with good reason and with safety/duty of care in mind. SE is innocent until proven guilty, but the groups/parents are being asked to prove they are faultless over and over, when the facts are stacked and seem to clearly show SE didn't secure the holidays paid for.
You could say that happened in the minority of cases, and that following groups had secured bookings etc, but I don't see SE compensating the obvious cases, let along the grey area ones.
But then we don't know the real status and situation. Only those taking some action have (some of) that.
One thing is certain - this debacle will haunt SE as a business for good and no judgement or let-off will save it, and CR only has himself to blaim. Not the 'commercial sabotage, defaulting schools, malicious journalists, moaning parents etc'.
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Cant see CR trading again! But he has made the dosh from the parents monies! He got the deposits and money in full, because of his extra sales staff! The sales staff I am mention are the organisers and teachers wanting the trip gratis! Greed put the kids and their parents into this situation, just as CR and SE did! The only difference is that you should have expected it from the company. The blame in part should also be put on those that got the added inducement of free slope time or beach time!
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You know it makes sense.
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 Simply not worth responding to.
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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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Roy Hockley, The only schools that can be blameless in this are the ones who booked with Ski Europe safe in the knowledge that SE was an approved supplier/contractor to their County Council education committee.
Who is to responsible for SE's inclusion and why at the County Council is quite another matter!
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Poster: A snowHead
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snowjoe, absolutely
I don't believe the figures that Reynard provided to AiTO re profits or his total asset figure of £4m either.
The prices he charged were commensurate with other companies - and if you actually look at their results similar companies have had a difficult time recently so I don't think that this is a business where there are large margins to be made. What I speculate Reynard was doing was making large cash drawings on his business to fund his lifestyle (he certainly did it before with his previous company), rather than keeping such funds in the business to pay next year's creditors etc. etc.
We are now hearing that CR is a broken man. I may a lot of sympathy for those who are experiencing genuine business difficulties - but the scale of Reynard's abilty to deliver what he has already received payment for suggest that the money was going somewhere else than to cover business costs and surely Reynard's experience should have told him that something was going wrong long before this February. He also claims to have many years of experience with children - well if he had he should have learnt something about how to get disappointing messages across to children, and that allowing children to get excited and than crush their hopes at the last moment (whether they are 9 or 16) is not the way to do it. The way he has behaved to the kids which is verging on cruelty and his total inability to accept responsibility for his own actions just demonstrate to me that he is the sort of man who needs to be broken. Others may wish to heap responsibility on others to suit their own bandwagons (and I don't disagree that there are lessons not to be earned) - but I'm afraid they are just missing the rather enormous and bad elephant in the room who makes others sins and trusting human nature pale into insignificance.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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My guess is that at the start of 2011 (if not earlier) CR would have had net creditors of at least £600k representing the amount that he has been unable to deliver for the 2011 season (that we know about) and which will have largely been paid for in full. With a business turnover of c£2m and probably falling in current market conditions - I would like to ask CR how he thought he could trade out of such a shortfall. If he cannot provide an answer - then anyone with any knowledge of insolvency will know that he was continuing to trade while insolvent.
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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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The post below from the Reading School skitrip blog provides some clues as to how Reynard was operating pre collapse
Matt Hanson said...
I am dismayed at the antics of Reynard and SE.
I own and run a coach agency/brokerage and was approached by Reynard to oversee the whole of his transport operation.
My wife and I attended his home for a meeting in October 2010 with a view to a formal arrangement. I was shocked to discover that SE had so many trips that they had no agreements on in the form of travel. We were asked to source coaches at what I can only describe as paltry prices, with 60 day terms of business which were totally unacceptable.
We asked for a couple of days to think over the proposal in order to conduct credit checks etc and made the decision to reject the proposal which promised in the region of £500k revenue per annum.
As a relatively new business, Reynard probably thought he could take advantage of our ambition and I have no doubt, that he would have destroyed our business.
I feel for all families connected with the scenario created by Reynard and SE, you deserve better.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| D G Orf wrote: |
| wigan, as it happens I agree that it sounds a little high, however I suspect that this might be due to the kids covering the cost of accompanying teachers in addition to their own costs. I mentioned Earlier that the Christian Group Oak Hall run trips to Lauterbrunnen for a much more reasonable price, Coach plus Accomodation comes in at about £380 add in a ski pass Jungfrau region 6 day with current exchange rate for an under 16 in a group about £110 and ski hire (from Oak hall at just £53 for the week) Plus instruction (5 2 hour lessons Oak hall £58 ) and you come in at a shade over £600 but then you need to allow for accompanying adults profit margin and so on. with 100 kids however theres a fairly healthy £26,000 cut to take those from ! |
I can confirm that Mr Reynard makes on average between 15% and 20% profit on each trip. That includes the cost of the accompanying teachers, accommodation for the reps, ski instructors and coach drivers, ski passes for everybody etc.
I am a ski instructor and was working in February with a school that had to pay for everything again as CR never signed any contract with the hotelier nor paid the deposits due. The school had to pay for the accommodation, the ski passes, the ski hire and an additional local instructor as SE failed to provide the necessary number of qualified instructors. The only thing SE paid for was the coach trip. Naturally the school had paid SE in full well in advance. Knowing what the school paid Mr Reynard and what they had to pay in resort, plus the approximate cost of the coach, it was easy to calculate Mr Reynard potential profit. It worked out at 20% net. Well actually his profit was closed to 100% in this instance as he paid nothing for the resort services.
I have been working for SE for the past 4 or 5 years and, although in the past most of the local services had been paid for, the organizational work provided by the SE office has always been very poor and it was only the resort managers, reps and ski instructors who made the holidays a success. Is such poor work by the SE UK office worth 20%? I would've thought that to organize a successful ski trip does not take a great amount of effort. School teachers are undauntedly overworked and the burden and responsibility of organizing a ski trip is certainly well beyond their call of duty, but where schools have made contacts with reps, hoteliers and local facilities in resorts it shouldn't be too difficult and a very healthy saving could be achieved. I for one would be far happier to work for a school directly than to work for an outfit like SE. It would be nice to work for an honest school that pays on time instead of ...... well you know what I mean. I know that many of my colleagues think the same. By the way in the past Mr Reynard has paid me, but always terribly late and after many chasing emails and telephone calls. The excuses offered for the delays were ranging from laughable to the ridiculous. Has he paid me this year? Well of course not, just like many of my colleagues and reps some of whom are out of pocket for the expenses they had to incur and which have not been reimbursed. Where has the money gone? Golf course, heliskiing in Canada, country house, just bad management....
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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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late_never_pay,
Have you passed this information onto the fraud squad at Devon Police esp re their being no contracts with the hotels or anything being paid for in the resort? Looks at though it might be highly relevant to their enquiries.
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| Quote: |
Looks at though it might be highly relevant to their enquiries.
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What, he makes on average 20% and is late paying his bills and is not a very nice person to work for, hardly the crime of the century, now accepting inducements that would be a different question, 
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[quote="rayscoops"]D G Orf, I do not mean additional bebefits for the kids on the trip, I was referring to the additional benefits that are available for those orgainising/booking the trip ... but we are not allowed to mention them/that here
The same people who do it for the benefit of the kids, the same people who on Thursday are going to put their own personal greed ahead of the needs of the those same children they all keep telling us are the main reason they do these trips, slight stink of hypocrisy me thinks!
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STOP PRESS - AND VERY BAD NEWS.
Yesterday AM Trust wrote to Chris Raynard, following extensive legal advice, and informed him that they as he did not inform them that he was a disqualified Director they decided that NO INSURANCE POLICY HAS EXISTED and they have refunded him several years of premiums.
THERE IS NO INSURANCE according to AM Trust.
This is a serious development and will now require the largest claimant to make a test case against AM Trust insurance. The high court will then decide if they have acted legally.
Sorry to be the purveyor of bad news.
Last edited by After all it is free  on Wed 29-06-11 13:13; edited 1 time in total
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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outofpocket, who are AM Trust?
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They are CR/SE insurance company.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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achilles, the Bond/Insurers in case of bankruptcy by CR T/A SE, as stated by AiTO as being fully in place, iirc
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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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outofpocket,
Per the AITO Website
"Companies admitted to AITO are all vetted and fully bonded for client's protection, in compliance with UK and European regulations. They are also bound by AITO's own Code of Business Practice."
This will of course be the other route for recovery if the Insurance company try to avoid their liability. It would also be interesting to see what due diligence AM Trust do on their clients (particularly when the insurance is a statutory requirement and in the public domain) - and also whether the other insurance they provide to the travel industry can be considered to be valid. It would appear that CR has added fraudulent insurance applications and operating without valid insurance to his many suspected crimes.
If AITO and the Insurance Industry want to try and walk away from this the consequence will be even greater regulation of Tour Operators so as to protect the ordinary punter.
leedsunited, If you think that taking payments for holidays and then not paying for the hotels etc and never booking the accomodation in the first place isn't prima facie evidence of fraud then as well as being deliberately provocative you are not very intelligent either.
Last edited by And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports. on Tue 28-06-11 11:37; edited 1 time in total
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must be the final nail in the coffin for schools/LEAs getting any money back any time soon - if at all. Does not look for the the parents even more so either 
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You know it makes sense.
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rayscoops, thanks - so, as I understand you, it is the insurance AiTO relied on to give customers cover?.
Stephen101, I too see no firm evidence to suggest that CR was being fraudulent in his insurance application. Depending on the full circumstances, he may have been negligent, fraudulent, or neither.
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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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| Quote: |
The same people who do it for the benefit of the kids, the same people who on Thursday are going to put their own personal greed ahead of the needs of the those same children they all keep telling us are the main reason they do these trips, slight stink of hypocrisy me thinks!
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 what utter tosh, you have no idea whether the teachers who are striking are the ones which are involved in organising ski trips. Only two classes affected at my daughters school, plenty of teachers still turning in. Stop muddying the waters with utter nonsense.
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Poster: A snowHead
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achilles,
The evidence is the insurance company saying he did not inform them that he was a former bankrupt and a disqualified Director - which was presumably something for which they asked confirmation - as to whether or not it is firm evidence that is something for the courts to test. As I said suspected crimes.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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, assuming that outofpocket's post is correct (this is the internet) then CR did not inform the insurance company that he was a former bankrupt and a disqualified Director. If that was a failure to notify a material fact, rather than failure to fill disclose something specifically required of a form filed or tick box, then it could be a range of things depending what was in his mind when he filled in the form. So knowing full well that the information was required but not notifying might be fraud. Not notifying, because he thought he had no reason to, might at worst be negligence. What has happened is bad, but interpreting beyond what we know doesn't make for better understanding, I think.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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achilles, Agree - all I was pointing out is that there is something further re Reynard's conduct that needs to be investigated by the authorities. I may have my suspicions of what happened - but that is all they are at this stage.
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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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Shimmy Alcott,
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what utter tosh, you have no idea whether the teachers who are striking are the ones which are involved in organising ski trips. Only two classes affected at my daughters school, plenty of teachers still turning in. Stop muddying the waters with utter nonsense.
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And also plenty who are not turning up!! Also how do you know that off the thousands that are striking non are or have been involved in organising trips
Not muddying the waters just standing on the line that apparently is sacrosanct and should not be crossed on this forum.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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leedsunited, must admit I can't see what the strike has to do with this thread.
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leedsunited,
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Also how do you know that off the thousands that are striking non are or have been involved in organising trips
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Yes and they must be remorsely hunted down with their names and pictures displayed in the the Daily Mail because they are doubly evil - I presume.
Since we are playing the guilt by association game perhaps we could point out how Leeds United fans are usually near the top of the football hooligan figures produced by the Home Office.
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Stephen101,
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you are not very intelligent either
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Clever enough to understand that sadly you have two Hopes of recovering your spondooleys - Bob Hope & No Hope
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Would be helpful to start a leedsunited and Stephen101 don't like each other thread?
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Clever enough to understand that sadly you have two Hopes of recovering your spondooleys - Bob Hope & No Hope
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Wrong again!
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FAQ
