Qualitas LGV Training Sterling LGV Training, Autosearch Essex LTD, Flair LGV Training, Amraf Training PLC Took money then didn't provide course Chelmsford, United Kingdom

Hi John

Well I see you have made it into the daily Mirror, hopefully this will help save more people from been left out of pocket. For those who didn't see it here is the text.

Five hundred trainee truckers lost their course fees of up to 1,000 when Autosearch (Essex) Ltd collapsed.

Tommy Williams, a sweeper on Liverpool's Albert Dock, enrolled with Qualitas Training: "I am on low pay and needed this to better myself."

Qualitas was run by John Dawson (right), 53, from Braintree, Essex, until it was wound up in 2007 but continued as a trading name for Autosearch.

Autosearch went bust last year owing 460,000 to trainee truckers.

Dawson's ugly mug has graced this column before, when his IT training firm Amraf Training PLC collapsed in 2001. Thousands of students wasted 4,000 fees on courses that were abandoned, but not before Dawson and co-director Anthony Johnson banked 1.5million in two years.

Dawson's already dusted himself off again and has set up Flair HGV Training.

He's now got the cheek to call for minimum training standards, warning:
"It's all too easy to close down and start again." Well, he'd know.

Pretty damning I think you'd agree. To really put this into context here is the report from your Amraf days.

So John, would you like to reply to this in your usual eloquent way, defending everything you do? Or will you finally stop the games and stop looking at people as something you can simply ripoff? Thinking of changing the companies name to get away from this? I will keep an eye out along with many others.

Hi John, thank you for making the effort to reply which is a little different from the amraf days. To give you an idea of why I am a little angry I have been unfortunate enough to have experienced both Amraf and qualitas.
 
My Son who was 20 at the time signed up for one of your Amraf courses prior to the collapse in order to improve his new career. We keep the 2 cheque which was all we got back framed on the wall probably along with thousands of others. You can imagine what it was like for me to lose out to Qualitas in the same way especially at my age.

You describe it as complex, it wasn't, you were taking 500,000 each with your partner a year. You continued to take money from students knowing full well what was going to happen. They said it best in the report that you should never be allowed to run a business again.

We could see what you were up to, use the goverment backed scheme to give credibility, expand beyond the ability to earn in the hope of selling, then if it all went pear shaped take as much money out as possible. The problem was the students were not numbers on a profit and loss sheet, they were real people with real lives devastated  by this. Still at least the money allowed you to afford the security for the court case.

As to Qualitas, you are quite correct you are not on the list of directors but you have association with the people who were. Your own business Qualitas Training LTD (set up after it was stated you should never run a business again) shows up on companies house and has common address occuring with autosearch over a year prior to the absorbtion into Autosearch.

You worked quite high up in the new company certainly high enough to see what they were doing (a quick google of the complaints shows a common theme). You were also happy to use the terms and conditions from their site which were used to perpetrate this and put it on yours.

I could go on forever about this and like I say thank you for responding but I am sad to see you still have no remorse for what you have done over the years. In fact you actually seem proud of your past actually posting the fact you are John Dawson from qualitas and Amraf on a website which is how I found all this.

Regards

Dan

My name is John Dawson. I am replying to the original report because while websites like this provide a valuable service the reader should know both sides of the story.

I started the company Qualitas Training Ltd in early 2004. We built a good reputation within the industry and in May 2006 we were approached by a a much larger company, Autosearch (Essex) Ltd who wanted to take us over.

At that time Autosearch traded under the name Sterling Training. They continued to do so and in fact traded under 2 different names, Sterling Training and Qualitas Training.

Qualitas Training Ltd was closed down and Autosearch (Essex) Ltd continued using the name from May 2006.

From that moment on I was employed by Autosearch primarily as a LGV trainer. This continued until October 2009 when I left the company along with many other instructors who were being made redundant due to a severe downturn in new course bookings.

I purchased a vehicle from them that they no longer needed with the intention of starting a new much smaller one man business as an LGV trainer. I called this new business Flair Training.

Since then Autosearch (essex) Ltd has gone into receivership. At no point in the past was I either a shareholder or director of the company. I was an employee only.

I completely refute the suggestion that I have sold training courses with no intention of fulfilling the training. Qualitas Training was a well run business up until the time it was taken over by Autosearch. The new business Flair Training has also been setup with the intention of providing value for money LGV courses. To date we have had no complaints from any customers.

It is easy enough to look up Autosearch (Essex) Ltd online at companies house and download a list of directors and shareholders. You will not find me on that list.

The story of Amraf Training is a long and complicated one but in brief it was an I.T training company started in 1987 that unfortunately went bust in late 2001 along with many other similar businesses shortly after the 9/11 event.