Buildteam - Clapham based company "Side return specialists"

[Daisy123abc]

Hello world. Has anyone else used this company?
I am seeking others who may have had issues similar to the ones we have experienced in order to convince me that it wasn't all just our bad luck.
We are in recovery (and may need therapy) from using Buildteam's services. A truly ghastly experience which has included: delays, empty promises, appalling customer service, hidden costs, serious disinterest in quality, non English speaking workforce, major building errors, staff changes, some dishonesty, absent project management etc.
The list goes on and on.
Given our experience, their shiny website now reads like an imaginative comedy script detailing all the things we didn't get. I have a huge file (think dossier) of documented evidence, including video, which provides examples of how we didn't. Blog, book, TV series and movie to follow. Maybe.
Who are all these happy customers? Why aren't I one of them?
If you are thinking of a side return I am happy to share details so you can make your own mind up but if you want my advice, don't go there.

Well what an interesting thread. I don't want or need a builder but believe in the power of real reviews and this thread really tells a fascinating story. Long live the Internet.

Kirinm - yes. Mine was deleted because BuildTeam threatened legal action against me and Mumsnet.

Well we know who to strike off our list if we ever get round to doing our building work!

Ps thanks to the fellow south Londoners!

Yes,one was deleted for the same reason. I'm sure I'm allowed to say that as it is a fact.

Dear all,
I know this thread has received a large amount of attention, for which I am very grateful. Today I turn to you, the mumsnet community, for your help.
I have just received notification that my previous post has been removed. This is because it appears that the script of my post appears word for actual word and full stop, comma match perfect on another url which miraculously pre-dates my own. This evidence would make it appear that my description was not original. That way it can legitimately be removed.

To say that I am utterly devastated by this is an understatement and I would like to assert that everything I wrote was my own and was an accurate description of my family's experience. To have our humanity denied in such a way is wounding beyond belief which is compounded by the physical situation we still find ourselves having to live in at home.

I invite you all to reflect on how this duplication could have happened when:
I have several drafts of my narrative which I made before posting it.
I have photographs of everything I described
I have copies of communication
I have witness testimony
I have also been contacted by an increasing number of people who have awful stories of their own.

Please respond Mumsnet, I need your help. .

Daisy I just did a google of 'Build team' and see what they have done. They have done this to stop this thread appearing on Google searches of their name. I didn't want to read and run...you are not going mad, this is happening. As a south Londoner I need you and others like you on this thread to report when they have had poor experience (i know this is a gross understatement of what has happened to you). How is your dispute progressing? Take heart from the fact people round here talk and word is spreading about Build team. What next? Start another thread pointing people in the direction if this one. Worse case scenario they have to pull another stunt like the invented article that you have supposed to have plagiarised in your initial post. The lengths they are going to, it's crazy'

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you responding. I have spent my whole life dedicated to careers where ethics and values have surrounded everything. Regardless of the actual contextual situation, this accusation of plagiarism is deeply and personally wounding. I have looked at the website in question and the message I recieved and the link is here:

This content has been copywritten by another website written by a Douglas Bush: www.gotohomestay.com/buildteam-interior-designers/

I suspect it will not last long.
We are still living in awful conditions while we work out how to resolve our situation. We were left with a definition of Practical Completion which was not anywhere near what is described by the FMB Code of Practice. Our lives have been made miserable for 10 months.

Some public information which is freely available on the internet below for the reference of any interested parties.

Here is a link to the complaint to Google from Mr Douglas Bush who wrote my review before I did:
www.lumendatabase.org/notices/12083648#

The website where Mr Douglas Bush's original review appears is registered in Pakistan orignally in April 2015 and renewed in Mar 2016
Registrant Email: [email protected]
Admin Name: Muhammad Ashraf
Admin Street: Faisalabad
Admin City: Faisalabad
Admin State/Province: Punjab
Admin Postal Code: 38000
Admin Country: PK
Admin Phone: +92.3346547714

According to the website, which appears to be total gobbledegook, Mr Douglas Bush is from Indiana! How extraordinary that he should have had building work done by a firm from South London. Thanks for bringing this to wider attention op.

Thank you KatieHopkinsAteMyHamster. Having been preferably circumspect up until now I no longer feel that this is fair play. I urge anyone interested in social justice to take an interest in assessing how far it is acceptable to go in order to protect a commercial interest. This evening I emailed the Evening Standard to see if they would like to investigate this as a topic of modern debate. Has the ability to manipulate online media made vulnerable idiots of us all?

This is totally outrageous. Perhaps if they spent their time more appropriately they wouldn't have to deal with shit reviews at all.

I'm so sorry you're going through this.

Incidentally, I am not trying to be Sherlock Holmes here but rather invite comment from the general public. Berpakona's comment, which you will note has been removed, was reported to Mumsnet by myself on April the 12th.This specific post was a direct copy of one lifted from Google reviews which I happen to know was not created by this particular user. Recognising this fact I was concerned about the rationale of this behaviour and drew it to the attention of the Mumsnet administrator who responded accordingly. I note that the most recent complaint from Mr Bush as detailed above was submitted on April the 13th.

this is shocking. I think the only comfort Daisy is that since they appear to be trying so hard, including something that sounds very underhand if it can be verified, to remove your review, it may be having an impact on their business.

I'm sure i will shortly be threatened by Dan Davidson with libel action (again) and my comment will disappear.

Thank you BumbleNova.
All these dramas aside most people in business would probably agree that poor customer service is more expensive than good customer service and that it all relies upon the standard that an individual company chooses to set for themselves. Year ago I once worked briefly for a chap who would rather earn a crooked £5 than an honest £10; however his ability to assume a moral high ground was still in development and he made it a little obvious that he found the game too enjoyable. His success ultimately relied upon being able to surround himself with people who bought into his ideology as this way there was no challenge. Perhaps after creating and living in this sort of bubble long enough it becomes normal life and you actually start to believe your own nonsense.
I am a firm believer that the truth usually wins in the end.

Have you counterclaimed the takedown notice? Don't worry, they are becoming increasingly desperate and this will pnly bring more attention in the long term.

Yes whatsthatcomingoverthehill, I have counterclaimed and I welcome a full investigation. I will spend as long and take this as far as I need to. For those who are technically minded it might be of interest that information publicly available from here: www.gotohomestay.com/robots.txt,
reveals that it looks like there is an embedded code in this website that stops search engines from indexing it. In simple terms it means Google won't be returning their website in Google's search results because this code asks them not to:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

There are many reasons a site may not want to be indexed. One may be to prevent there being an external record of when a page was first indexed but additionally the flip side is that it would also make it very hard for someone like me to have found "Mr Bush's" review in the first place in order to copy it.

I even found Mr Bush in the White Pages and will be making contact. Perhaps I might ask him why he uses the term "skip" instead of "dumpster" as they do in the States. In the meantime I have left him a comment to his response on the website inviting him to come and join this discussion as clearly we have a lot in common. My comment is currently awaiting moderation so I do hope the moderator posts it.

The phone number used to purchase the domain name, can be linked to around 560 other websites. One of which is www.youdoopets.com/, a replica of www.gotohomestay.com.

It is very interesting stuff. Isn't the internet wonderful!

Well that's good. I had similar to you when I tried looking into it. I'm sure there are techy types who can find out more than the freely available tools.

What's most interesting is how this has happened. It does seem very peculiar that a particular post is picked on like that. I wonder who could possibly be interested in concocting such a thing. I doubt it comes that cheap either. The lengths people will go to eh....

This is getting interesting.

So the update date of the domain is 17 March 2016, this means the "who is" information changed then. It was created on 4 February 2015, but it could well be that it was sitting as an unused domain until then. Daisy how does the 17th March sit in your timeline, would it fit that that was (unproven) when the website came into existence in it's current form?

I see the website owner has a couple of similar in style yet unrelated websites
healthbehaviorgroup.com/
www.tech-cave.com/
Not sure if that line of enquiry is going anywhere, but it would be interesting to ascertain if these also have been involved in copyright claims.

Focussing on the website in hand www.gotohomestay.com/
It doesn't feature overt advertising (like the other websites and unlike mumsnet which is trying to sell me RAC cover in the top banner). This seems unusual if it is a site of home improvement tips and tricks, I would expect the website to be run to try and earn money. A couple of more recent articles do link to companies. For example
hardwoodfloorinstallation.net/
www.bdincorp.com/
www.levellifts.co.uk/
naturallandscapeandirrigation.com/
It would be interesting to see if they are aware of, or can shed any light on the website. i.e. have they just been used by the website to give it an apparent purpose, have they paid for advertising on it, or is it genuine spontaneous endorsements?

Clicking on a few articles at random, it has the apparent air of some hastily put together content.
For example:
www.gotohomestay.com/benefits-gas-boilers/ I would love Piglet John's view on this.

Even articles promoting companies are distinctly odd
www.gotohomestay.com/design-garden-portland-landscaper/

I am going to put quotes to illustrate in a separate email in case I have to remove them (although trust me I am crediting the source).

It's all very curious. Do the daily mail read the property forum - really feels like there is a story here.

This is all giving the appearance that Build Team are going to extreme lengths to remove a bad review. Surely they could just get some happy customers post positive reviews? When a company does a lot of business you expect some negative, it shouldn't be necessary to remove all trace. Personally I always avoid companies on sites like checkatrade which have 100% score, it doesn't ring true. All very curious....

Some quotes from articles - these are not original content and all credit should be given to the linked source. I have included snippets purely to promote and encourage reading of the source material. I cannot see any terms and conditions on the website to prevent me from doing this. To my knowledge this is not copyright infringement, but if corrected I will try and get this post removed.

www.gotohomestay.com/benefits-gas-boilers/ I would love Piglet John's view on this.
Some quotes that maybe he could explain
The best boiler must be simple to set up and simple to utilize, so users don’t need to stress over getting hot water regardless of the possibility that they are not coming in the master class
These units are versatile and could be utilized for a big family, a trip in the recreation center or actually for a bigger assembling in your own particular back yard.
The temperature setting is highly admirable that contains 3 impressions

Even articles promoting companies are distinctly odd
www.gotohomestay.com/design-garden-portland-landscaper/
Management:
They make conceivable to convey astounding administration in an opportune way. They set guidelines of high caliber and our vision is to furnish the sheltered organization with demonstrable skill.

Mobile Worker:
This is the best landscape framework that offers points of interest to the versatile laborer to stay in contact with the workplace on their cell phones.

Productivity:
They raise the efficiency by improving the productivity of the work because of the establishment of the System of communication is very flexible.

Customer Service:
It is an immaculate source to give the capable client benefit that is the way to the achievement of the business. They offer amazing client administrations for the more noteworthy satisfaction of their respectable clients.

If I were to try and explain this, my best guess would be that someone in a country where labour is cheap and who is not a native English speaker, has taken articles from around the internet and adapted them to avoid traceability. Alternatively some kind of computer program may have done the same job. Possibly it is translations from articles in another language.

Some of the articles do show up in other places. But some of those other websites look...interesting... too. It's pretty clearly a 'to hire' operation to enable a DMCA notice to be filed to remove stuff from google people don't want.

I was trying to be more subtle than outright say it! I think we should now be trying to expose the alleged operation, as well as the initial company discussed.

I somehow doubt the people who set up the website are in any way bothered. They've done what they were asked to do so job done.

Trying to show any link to anyone else will be impossible even if it is clear as day what has gone on.

My best guess is that BuildTeam have hired a 'we clean up your online reputation' agency, who have outsourced it to Pakistan?
They know a few blunt instrument ways of getting takedown notices issued and have had a not-very-sophisticated go at it, and have been roundly exposed.

BuildTeam, has it ever occurred to you to put as much effort into your day job as you put into gagging your online critics? Can't help but think you wouldn't be in half this mess if you did...