Edfirst Reviews 110

Can anyone tell me how I start legal proceedings?
I cannot believe companies like this still exist.

Don't be fooled by the positive ratings - they are all a bunch of lies. I was contacted by these guys under the guise of 'School Supplies Services Ltd' which was also trading as EdFirst.co.uk when I was first contacted by them.

Clearly these fraudsters prey on new business owners. They will manipulate you and spin you a bunch of lies based on information they have found about your business online, pressuring you into a decision and then you'll never see that money again.

I called back 20 minutes after the initial call as I didn't feel right about it, and true enough they back-tracked on everything they had said, and they wouldn't refund the £600 I'd just handed over in spite of providing no service for me at that time.

Don't be fooled these people are fraudsters and not genuine. I hope they get what's coming to them.

Slow burner but it's what you put into it steven been very helpful with fact and details of schools provided yes it has took us a month to start seeing order but had 4 schools contact about us taking over the I.T Support for them full time

I was approached by this company (calling themselves School Supplies Service / Tenders 4 U) which was a cold call based on the services my company previously offered.

They were extremely pushy trying to get me to sign up to their exclusive selection of jobs around my area and ended up pressuring me to give up £120. When I realised I'd been duped, I contacted their sales representative to get a refund and was presented by their "Non- Cancellation Policy" which says (quote):

"As a company we operate in the business to business market and as such as per English Law there is no ‘cooling off period’ for our products and services.
When instructing us that you wish to take out one of our products and/or services you are agreeing to our full terms and conditions which are displayed on our website and in our literature. Although we work within English Law where cooling off periods do not apply we do look at request’s for cancellation/refunds on a case by case basis.
When making a refund / cancellation request please outline your reasoning’s in full by post, please include as much detail as possible to allow us to investigate this fully.
Requests are to be posted to -
Cancellations Dept. School Supplies Service, Office 2b, Glovers Meadow, Maesbury Road, Oswestry.
SY10 8NH
Please note this must be done by post, emails will not be accepted."

I've reported this company to the Financial Ombudsman, the FCA and the UK regulators network. I've also begun legal proceedings against this company and will be taking them to court with the aim of claiming £26,931.12 (calculated by 2 solicitors firms in the city +/- £200) based on a long list of attributes of this mis-sold service, due to many factors including but not limited to:

The risks were not clearly explained to me.
I was not given all the information that was needed for me to be able to form a proper decision.
I have ended up with a service that isn't right for me.
I felt pressured into giving up money before having time to form a proper decision based on information that wasn't presented to me.
I wasn't informed of the refund policy before being coerced into giving up my money.
Nobody explained the full terms and conditions to me before taking my money.

We were contact by a member of their sales team who claimed that on average, they were receiving 17 enquiries per month from schools looking for support from our business type, in our area. We've now been signed up for just over 4 months and have not received a single enquiry. Massive Con.

Approached by this company as they were in need of a supplier in our area for their customers (assumed existing) as they had had to get rid of previous supplier due to quality issues. Not had one contact from any of their customers. Business themselves very difficult to get hold of to discuss. Feel ripped off. Total waste of money. Wish I'd given the fee to a dog's home.

I cannot believe the cheek of this second rate bunch of chancers. Having previously asked for a refund and to be delisted, (30 or more emails on file just in case they come back and say they know nothing about it) I just got a call about renewing with them from the latest poor sole to be employed by there. If they were the last and only source of leads in the Education Sector and my Company was 100% focussed on that market sector, I still wouldn't use Edfirst. Edlast more like. Beware.

Everything this company said to me on the phone was a complete lie and a scam. They also try to get every negative review removed from this site by falsely claiming it is defamatory or that they never spoke to you.
If you check the positive reviews on Google, almost all of those users have only left 1 review (for edfirst) and the google accounts were only created right before leaving the review.

I called several local schools, and they never heard of edfirst

Don't believe a word that this company say. We are a very small company, I was very dubious to believe what this company were offering and thought it was too good to be true. I completed due diligence checks, I asked questions on email. This company on email guaranteed at least one boiler service per school within a period of 12 months. We had exclusive rights to 38 schools in Cardiff, as long as we could carry out one boiler service per school then the fees paid for themselves. This was guaranteed verbally and on email. However it transpired after a few months that we were miss-sold as they can not guarantee what the sales person promised. The case was investigated, all the call transcripts were listened too. The Operations Director Tom King requested that I send in a formal request for cancellation, this was done on 10th December 2019. They had 14 days to respond and surprise surprise they have not, I have left numerous telephones messages for Tom King and emails, no response! I have now contacted my my business bank who are going to request a refund via the small claims court as the service that was promised has not been delivered. Do not trust this company, schools should not be associating themselves with this company who clearly are defrauding genuine small business out very much needed cashflow. Shame on you School Supplies Service Ltd. Since this company work with schools I will also be contacting the Government Education department and informing them of this company's selling tactics.

They promise the earth, but deliver a pile of dung.

I was with this company a few years ago and despite being the only tree surgeon on their directory for my area, I got a total of zero calls from schools over a year.

They are just a directory - schools are not obliged to use this directory. They can, and will, use other means to find businesses. Best put your money into more reputable marketing avenues.

Stay away from School Supplies Services.
We received a sales call and expressed some interest in their services. Their sales team were good but pushy. Without ANY signed order, they then interpreted these emails of ours (expressing interest) as an order, and raised an invoice! We didn't pay it obviously, and they are now threatening us with court action, including a proforma of the claim form naming one of my staff as the defendant. That member of my team is very upset. School supplies services seem unscrupulous and I strongly advise you to steer well clear

Do not sign up with this company. They will promise you leads for your business which never materialise, and lie repeatedly. Thanks to requesting phone records I was able to prove their lies - amazingly they still refused to refund me even with this evidence, and it was only a threatening legal letter which scared them into doing the right thing. A huge waste of my time trying to sort it out - I am embarrassed to have fallen for it in the first place.

Having been with School Supplies Service (edFirst) now for a number of years covering First Aid training courses, we initial joined to cover just our local postcode but over the years have taken on more areas and now cover the whole region as a backup company whilst still covering our local schools as a priority member



I have nothing but good things to say about what the team at edFirst do for us, we are promoted year on year to the schools that they have on their books through different mediums from the online portal, direct marketing emails that they send for us at no extra charge and the high quality handbook in which we have a full colour page that goes to the schools each and every year, of which we get a copy as business also.



We have recently also subscribe to the Tenders 4 U Process that they run, we have not done tendering before but Matt Wright has helped us hugely in finding suitable tenders and also submitting tenders on our behalf, all at no extra cost.



Since being with School Supplies Service we have managed to get into a number of schools and have continuing relationships with the, we have always struggled to get into schools previously. We run various courses for the schools for the children and also the staff members. Schools that we have worked in have also then recommended us to other schools who are not particularly signed up with School Supplies Service so we have also gained more work through word of mouth since joining School Supplies Service.



The full team at School Supplies Service are always very helpful from the girls on admin right through to my account manager Cheri who is always very helpful when making edits to my profile page ensuring it remains relevant and fresh for the schools.



For the cost of the services and support that they give you and the work that we have picked up over the last few years I can’t recommend School Supplies Services enough.

Pushy sales techniques.. “well we already have another company interested so you need to say yes now” No reputable company would use that old scam! Don’t give them anything, if it sounds to good to be true it certainly will be!!

Be aware of other companies affiliating themselves with edfirst, have been approached twice by another company producing hwrk magazine supposedly providing a handbook on edfirsts behalf then ask for a further £295 + to produce it, when I registered with edfirst they assured me my initial fee was all I had to pay, luckily had them send me through invoice didn't give them card details, rang them back told them it was a scam, to cancel a verbal order they had just conned me into, no work as yet out of edfirst be very dubious if they call you had this crap from advertising companies many years ago

I have been on a few of these things this is the first advertisement directly at schools and my first impressions are great. I am impressed with the selection of emails we have and are receiving and the contact we have with the edfirst staff is worth the money itself. What made me write this review is the fact we have recently had contact from an establishment for graffiti removal via edfirst. Keep it up and we will of course be renewing next year

Can't thank the edfirst team enough! Had a major electrical fault withing the school. I called the helpline number on edfirst.co.uk and spoke to Karen who was very helpful and quickly got me an electrician out to me. Problem was sorted before the pupils arrived back from the weekend meaning we didn't have to close for the day.

Saved me searching and ringing numerous companies to try and get the situation sorted.

Thank you edfirst team!

A GREAT BIG CON. BEWARE.

We are an IT Company who tried this lot back in 2012 and never had one successful enquiry. They phoned we again yesterday - 7 years later - to offer us exclusivity for "Wireless Networking" for schools in our Postcode area. I have since found out that actually what they do is phone IT Companies like ours up and offer one service to that IT Company and different services to others in THE SAME POST CODE AREA. Hence some get things like "Online Backup" or "PC Repair" or "Printer Repairs" or "Network Support" and so the list goes on !! They charge each IT company £440 or so and make themselves a fortune saying we exclusivity for our Post Code but actually most of us IT companies provide all or most services so when an enquiry comes up all of us sign up and show an interest - SADLY NO EXCLUSIVITY AND A MASSIVE WASTE OF MONEY.
CERTAINLY THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR OUR INDUSTRY.

Perhaps might work for "Sportswear Supplier", "Inside Toilets", "Footballs" - BUT CERTAINLY NOT IT AND I'M SURE MANY OTHER SERVICES WOULD FALL INTO SIMILAR CATEGORY AS US.

BEWARE - THE SALES TEAM HAVE BEEN TRAINED VERY CAREFULLY AND SOUND VERY CONVINCING.

When the salesperson phoned me yesterday he said if I sign up and pay now that will guarantee your exclusivity. I said I would think about it, having previously asked him some searching questions, and could he email me his details, costings etc.....

SURPRISE SURPRISE - NO EMAIL HAS ARRIVED !! I assume he thought I knew too much and wasn't going to be scammed.

PLEASE DON'T GET CALLED OUT !! Think carefully before you sign up.

I'd like to share my experience for others. I was contacted 3 months ago in regards of cleaning services within schools. As this is something we already do it caught my attention. We have advertised in different things but this one was OK as long as ROI was there. I called them up recently to express my gratitude as we have just completed 3 decent sized tenders and we have had exposure within schools of interest. This is confirmed by one of the heads we know. The sales team were excellent manner. Never to much trouble. I would recomend this service as I have done.

Good service. Signed up for my renewal last week. Bit cheaper this time round, good selection of tenders available. I recomend this service as a builder I don't always have time so it's a good service for the contact I get.