For many years now, The truth About Solitaire, Peverel Action and now About Peverel have brought out into the open alarming tales of Firstport corruption.
Even by the standards of Peverel/Firstport this scandal is almost beyond anything previously reported, may be not in scale but for utter contempt for residents this takes some beating.
Like most scams that involve Firstport, they are usually very hard to uncover especially, if two parties,as in this case it is alleged that a contractor and development manager conspired together to defraud residents.
However, on ocassions the best schemes can come unstuck if something unlikely to happen actually happens!
This story involves Homecove House, Westcliffe-on Sea and Old Rectory Court in Southend on-Sea. Both these developments are managed by Firstport.
For a considerable period of time, a very popular and dedicated cleaner by the name of Elizabeth was employed by a company called Essex Cleaning Solutions who had several cleaning contracts with Firstport. She worked 15 hours per week and residents would often compliment her on her standard of work.
Unfortunately their was an incident with a resident for which Elizabeth was entirely innocent (and it subsequently appears that the resident invoved had a "history" which resulted in a vicious attack on Elizabeth which left her unable to work for nearly 4 months.
When she came back, the first thing she noticed was that the development that had been spotless was now filthy.
According to residents, in her absence Essex Cleaning Solutions had sent someone for perhaps one hour a day, but charged Firstport who in turn charged residents the full contract price, even though the cleaning hours let alone the cleaning standards had been substantially reduced.
Despite evidence directly pointing to the poor standards and the invoicing for too many hours the development manager signed all the works off.
After complaints were made about this it was subsequently discovered that cleaning items purchased for one pound by Essex Cleaning Solutions were re-charged to Firstport at 2.50 pence and it was also alleged that it was a routine practice for cleaning solutions to be watered down before use.
Though without absolute proof, after these allegations were made Firstport sourced cleaning products through Ace Office Products, who they use regularly and are generally far more expensive than most other suppliers (especially when the customer is Firstport)
Clearly residents at this development have been ripped off.
Now we move on to the strange goings on at Old Rectory Court, where Elizabeth also cleaned.
About Peverel has not been able to ascertain the exact circumstances, but it appears that following a dispute with a resident the House Manager Toni Donan in the presence of Senior Area Manager, Claire Dawson received a Police Caution. (If this is not the case Toni Donan and Claire Dawson may contact About Peverel and we will of course immediately retract that statement)
It is alleged that Toni Donan when living in the House Manager's flat ordered a top of the range kitchen costing in the region of 8,000, which of course was paid for from the residents service harge trust accounts.
When she left the employ of Firstport to set up a cleaning company T.J Cleaning, who just happened to have won Firstport cleaning contracts( by sheer coincidence) it appears that several expensive kitchen appliances disappeared.
It has also been alleged that a carpet cleaner, valued at 695 pounds and paid for by the residents went missing. It appears to have re-appeared in the guise of T.J Cleaning, who the former House Manager, Toni Donan works for.
It seems that this carpet cleaner had been quite a money spinner , as it had been made available for residents who wanted to clean their own carpets for a tenner a time!
It is alleged that when Claire Dawson was told about this she replied that "It was just collateral damage!"
Currently, it is the understanding of About Peverel that a company named as Essex
Cleaning Solutions is listed as dissolved.
in the meantime, evidence gathered in this matter has been passed to Essex Police for investigation.
