PRESS RELEASE ::: Oldham, July 2007.
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KITCHENS WAR COOKED THE NUMBERS
Vance Miller runs a cheap kitchens business that regularly keeps its customers happy,
yet he was accused by authorities of causing more consumer complaints than any other
independent trader in Britain. He wanted to know how that could happen.
After his home and factory in Oldham were raided in the small hours of the morning and
he was arrested in a police operation large enough to handle a major terrorist plot, he
really wanted to know how that could happen.
The media followed the story. National newspapers and television programmes like the
BBC's Watchdog characterised Vance Miller as 'Britain's worst rogue trader' based on
evidence supplied by the Office of Fair Trading.
Trading standards officers said they were handling between 60 and 100 complaints per
week about his business, known simply as 'Kitchens', and that the firm was the single
most complained about independent trader in the UK.
It was these same officials who requested the extraordinary raids last November
(29/11/2006), carried out by more than 130 police officers, citing "a major
conspiracy to defraud UK consumers that runs into millions of pounds".
But Mr Miller subsequently used the Freedom of Information Act to force an admission
from the Office of Fair Trading in Oldham that their figures had been "mixed up" and
to reveal that the level of complaints they received before the raid was planned was
not running at 60-100 per week... but 2-10 per month.
He says that the only "major conspiracy" to be revealed involves property development
plans held by local public officials, who view his thriving Kitchens business - based
in Maple Mill in Cardwell Street, Oldham - as a barrier to their own ambitions for the
area.
Following his investigations, Vance Miller issued the following statement, 25/06/2007,
along with documentary evidence obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and photo
copies from his extensive file of newspaper cuttings.
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John Rice, Oldham Council service director for environment protection, told the Oldham
Chronicle newspaper on 11th November 2006 that officials started to plan the raid on
Kitchens five months before it took place, in late June and early July 2006. In those
two months, the business received two and five complaints, respectively. But the Office
of Fair Trading in Oldham was at the same time proactively contacting newspaper and
television reporters with information that 50,000 complaints had been received, which
made Kitchens "the most complained about independent trader in the UK".
One month later, 27th August 2006, the Office of Fair Trading published an advertisement
asking for consumers with complaints to get in touch. Some customers were understandably
alarmed by the announcement and complaints received at Kitchens went up slightly as a
result.
3rd September 2006: The Office of Fair Trading announces it has more complaints resulting
from the advertisement and Kitchens records a further increase in calls to its offices
from customers.
10th and 17th October 2006: Reports by the BBC TV Watchdog programme ask for dissatisfied
customers to come forward. Tony Allen, head of Oldham Trading Standards emerges as leader
of a co-ordinated and longstanding campaign against the business. Complaints reach an
all-time high.
29th November 2006: Early morning raid by 130 police officers, accompanied by television
crews, newspaper reporters and Trading Standards personnel led by Tony Allen. Children's
toys found at the Maple Mill offices are used as the pretext for a statement to reporters
that "firearms" were recovered at the scene. The story is widely reported. ("5am Raid On
Kitchen Gangster" - "Weapons Found In Mill Swoop").
Conclusion: Five months before the raid, without just cause, when Kitchens was the subject
of very few complaints - no more than can be expected by any direct sale business supplying
hundreds of customers per week - Oldham Trading Standards officers were already planning to
see the business closed down.
'Freedom of Information' figures dated 10th May 2007 not only show that complaints against
Kitchens at no time amounted to "thousands", but also show a consistent drop, year on year,
revealing that, if anything, customer service was improving over time.
It is worth noting that this improvement was achieved despite having to fight against the
barrage of attacks originating with Oldham Council in the form of consistently hostile
newspaper stories and reports on television and radio.
There were other actions designed to destabilise the business. Publications were warned
by Oldham Trading Standards that they would face court action if they accepted its
advertisements. The Advertising Standards Authority was persistently contacted by Oldham
officials with requests to take action. Licences to operate essential delivery vehicles
were revoked by the Traffic Commissioner.
Despite having to deal with this running interference, I have still managed to bring down
my complaint figures year by year, even with the added numbers generated by the TV and
newspaper campaigns originating with spurious information supplied by Trading Standards.
In the 12 month period before the Trading Standards plan to target my business, only 73
complaints were received.
Figures obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, shown in the Oldham Borough Chief
Executive's Directorate report (attached), give a clear month by month breakdown of the
complaints received between April 2006 and March 2007. It is evident that the alleged
hundreds of complaints per month simply never existed and that complaints were at their
lowest ever level when Trading Standards were portraying the situation as one that
justified mounting an extraordinary pre-dawn raid by 130 police officers.
Following the raid, which generated huge publicity, complaints rose to unprecedented
levels, providing Oldham Trading Standards for the first time with the kind of figures
needed to back their campaign. Even so, it amounts to too little and too late: their
'final grand total' of 2,000 falls a long way short of the 50,000 originally used as
justification, which they claimed to have already recorded months earlier.
Staff at Kitchens and myself have worked hard to resolve all the complaints notified
and have succeeded in every case, even when hampered by missing records following the
seizure of all the company's paperwork and computer files in the November police action.
Today, all the Kitchens customers quoted in newspaper articles or referred to in BBC
Watchdog programmes are happy to speak to reporters about their thorough satisfaction
with the service they have received.
Contact details:
Vance Miller
Kitchens
Maple Mill
Cardwell Street
Oldham
Lancs
OL8 2AG
Tel: 0161 628 9731
Fax: 0161 622 3649
E-mail: kitchensoldham@hotmail.co.uk