[RedHotChiliNerd]

Incidentally, having cold hard truths told like it is is something a lot of young people haven't got experience of.

If TIC rejected them for not being good enough they'd be having hissy fits over that as well (and probably have people like AntiRed taking it to the Court of Human Rights).

[colin44]

This Thread is getting boring...Yawn

But I agree that Watchdog should have a good look at Red ETC...

Colin

[eddlad1]

I've followed this thread with interest for a couple of months now and felt now would be a good time to air my own views.
I am currently in training with TIC, in fact I take my Part 2 test in a fortnight Their training is excellent PROVIDING YOUR PREPARED TO PUT THE GRAFT IN YOURSELF, oh yes I'm under no illusions that my road to becoming an ADI will require hard work and dedication. When I signed up I was fully aware of what I was about to undertake, the WORK involved and the course contents.
Some of the posts on this forum begger belief, they drip of poor preperation, planning and research devoid of any common sense, reasoning or logic SOME OF THE EXACT QUALITIES WHICH ARE REQUIRED TO BECOME AN ADI!
Just how the hell does an individual aspiring to become an ADI not grasp the context of what a credit agreement means, and the ramifications which follow? Talk about chips on shoulders and sour grapes!!
For those trolling this forum, dont be put of by these people, if you are considering becoming and ADI, do your research, plan carefully and dont be under any illusions. TIC are no different than any other ADI training organisation and there is nothing underhand about them.
Many thanks to Redhotchillinerd, common sense and logic personified.

[jard]

Eddlad1

All the best for your Part2. Sounds like you have been putting in the work. Most TIC customers think all they have to do is pay the 3.5k and then they become ADI's. Plus 30k will fall into their laps!!

Good luck again Edd

[AntiRed]

Seriously though for those that are in a fix with this I have now changed my email address, to be posted at later date. I am direct contact with someone who are more in the know now with regard to people trying to get their money back from this. we do know there are Driving instructor college people on here, they will continually post trying to make you think you are being fooled into thinking its a ploy by us to name and shame them and that we have no basis for what we are saying. They mock us because we are trying to help people, and bully us into going away. Don't be blinded by the sugar contents of their messages, this is the exact same ploy and stance they make when signing people up. They are not interested in your circumstance, they just want a signature, and once they have it they have you.... remember no matter even if your circumstances change after you've signed up, you will struggle to get out of it, what if you lost your job, or your money, or something worst than that. I know of three people now including myself that have managed to get free, but this is only a minority, it is possible.

[AntiRed]

if you need to contact me, rather than print my email here, look for the group in Facebook (mentioned earlier), and leave a message, i will see it.

thanks

[eddlad1]

Thanks jard - and good luck to you!

[RedHotChiliNerd]

Yes, good luck eddlad1.

[oliverd]

hey on another forum i read someone is thinking about committing suicide or has already done so because of Red Driving School keeping there money:-(

[RedHotChiliNerd]

I'd be interested in hearing the full and correct story before leaping to any biased conclusions over a soundbite like that.

If something like this is enough to blow what few slates are still remaining on someone's roof off, it makes you wonder what state they were in to start with.

It takes more than spending (or borrowing) three grand to become an ADI, and having a hissy fit over it just proves the point still further.

[oliverd]

can't remember the site , i have tried researching it but can't find it again, but i swear I saw someone had committed suicide because they couldn't afford 7 grand not 4, sheesh, honestly man you wanna chill. I am convinced you are a driving instructor, else why would mostly all your posts be in this thread, something to think about, i only came on here to get advice, since then it's become apparent to me that there's a lot of bad feeling about all this on here and across the net. On here it's Mostly i may add coming from antred whoever that is and 'red' hotchillinerd

i was merely quoting, you seem to think it's another dig. to be honest i'm not that bothered either way, i'm out of my contract and I'm so pleased i could kiss everyone i meet.

[RedHotChiliNerd]

Of course I'm a driving instructor! I would have thought that was clear enough for it not to have to be complicated by false suspicions and the implication that I'm hiding that fact. I've said I'm an ADI more than once.

What difference does it make?

And yes, there IS a lot of bad feeling about this on here and on the net - that's the whole problem. So many people thought they could pick up £30k just by doing a few hours driving and they've been found wanting in the skills department. And the more thay complain about it the more areas they're found wanting in.

Becoming (and being) an ADI isn't a walk in the park, so someone who cannot understand that when you take out a loan you have to pay back interest should really concentrate on getting a job in McDonalds as a burger flipper, and not trying to take three exams for which the overall pass rate is about 6%.

The same goes for people who are prepared to sign up for such a loan - whether they understand it or not - and then start whining when they change their minds and can't back out of it.

You do not just pay 3 grand and then earn 30k a year the following day. There's a bit more to it than that and if any of these people should ever manage to scrape through they've got a hell of a shock coming.

I can't see how a comment like the one you posted about someone committing suicide because of Red can be seen as anything other than inflammatory or negative in this thread given the thread subject and your own comments on the matter earlier.

[AntiRed]

Beware
Thinking of Becoming a driving Instructor???
Have you seen the Red Driving School Ads?
30k sounds great doesn’t it?? Who wouldn’t love that kind of money?
Be-aware that if you sign any credit agreement with Lvg and the Driving Instructors College, you are still legally bound to pay the course and fee and any subsequent interest, this could be as much as £7000. Even then you may not even pass, and you will still owe that money, no matter how your circumstances change, imagine falling ill before you have chance to complete the course, the loan will still be payable.
Be warned if you are thinking of signing up, take all this into consideration.

another thing they don't make you aware of is the training expenses.

for example, you go for a two week crash course for your part one... if you are not near a college you will need to pay your accommodation, and all travelling expenses.

don't be blinded by 30k a year before you sign.

[oliverd]

[RedHotChiliNerd]

Only if the outcome is what they want.

People still haven't realised that with people like Mr Echo-Echo-Repeat-Myself-Every-Couple-Of-Days-And-Boast-About-It-On-Facebook (above) involved, any investigation is going to look rather foolish if it sides with the Angry Army.

Even if someone decides TIC needs to change what it does, it'll be patently obvious it is just because there are too many gullible morons out there. The same people that give rise to the need to put labels like 'do not eat' on mattresses and 'hot' on coffee cups from McDonalds.

[AntiRed]

[RedHotChiliNerd]

I hope Watchdog are aware of this thread when they do their investigation.

They need to know what class of people they're trying to defend

Mind you, the Beeb is into 'dumbing down' so I can imagine them concluding that TIC need to include something like 'Warning: You May Not Pass' or 'Alert: If You Borrow Money You Have To Pay It Back - And A Bit More Besides' in future advertising so some sectors of the animal kingdom aren't... shall we say: "embarrassed" by their own ignorance?

[AntiRed]

Beware
Thinking of Becoming a driving Instructor???
Have you seen the Red Driving School Ads?
30k sounds great doesn’t it?? Who wouldn’t love that kind of money?
Be-aware that if you sign any credit agreement with Lvg and the Driving Instructors College, you are still legally bound to pay the course and fee and any subsequent interest, this could be as much as £7000. Even then you may not even pass, and you will still owe that money, no matter how your circumstances change, imagine falling ill before you have chance to complete the course, the loan will still be payable.
Be warned if you are thinking of signing up, take all this into consideration.

another thing they don't make you aware of is the training expenses.

for example, you go for a two week crash course for your part one... if you are not near a college you will need to pay your accommodation, and all travelling expenses.

don't be blinded by 30k a year before you sign.

[oliverd]

[RedAlert]

The Red TV advert is very misleading. It gives the false impression that Red is a highly successful, rapidly expanding driving school that is looking for people to join them as driving instructors on £30,000 per year plus a car. This pretence is continued at subsequent meetings where you are told there is a massive demand for driving instructors and if you buy their training course to become an instructor they will guarantee you a job with Red or another driving school. They make it seem quite plausible that they would train for others as well as their own school as they are not only an incredibly successful driving school they are also the UK’s leading trainer of driving instructors.

The reality is that the company is not a highly successful driving school as it would have you believe trying to cope with an ever increasing demand from the public for Red driving lessons; it is in fact a company that sells instructor training courses as can be seen from the company’s accounts commented on earlier.

The driving instructor job offered by Red (or indeed any driving school) is in fact a franchise opportunity also referred to as a job franchise. Normally before someone buys into a job franchise they check that it is successful business format first. It is also normal for any franchisor (i.e. in this case the driving school) to prove it has a product that the public wants and that its brand name and/or methods are highly desirable. Companies like BSM, AA and LDC do have proven successful job franchises without a doubt and offer instructor training in a way that is measured to ensure they can properly support the people they train and recruit.

Red on the other hand is not a proven product (despite being in operation for 10 years) and was in fact shown to be making a large loss as a driving school when it was amalgamated into LVG limited in 2005 (see below for potted history). However, this loss was dwarfed by its profits on selling courses using the Red job promise. The company is not constrained by having to support the people it recruits because it only promises to place them with the Red franchise or that of another school. In any case by the time it takes the people it recruits to qualify (i.e. between 6 to 18 months) they will realise they have to pay Red £140 per week franchise fee and lease a car from someone else to join the franchise with no guarantee of any work. If the instructor doesn’t get enough work to pay for the car and the franchise what can he or she do about it? After all he or she wasn’t promised £30,000 per annum only that it was possible.

Because Red spends so much on advertising they offer the least amount of in-car training of any other company per pound spent. They also employ mass production training methods and the combination of these two factors mean few ever qualify in any case. They do offer so-called additional free training (because the standard training is inadequate especially for part 3) but as many people have found out they often drag out the free training over such a long period involving different trainers and shared with students at a different level to you that it is of little use.

Potted history of Red driving school (LVG Limited)
In 1993 The Instructor College Ltd (the first name it used) was born and sold courses on the back of a “so-called” guaranteed job with driving schools like BSM or the AA etc. Later in 1994 the company bought Airport Driving School Ltd which was in 1999 renamed to Red Driving School Ltd. This is also when The Instuctor College first started placing Red driving school adverts offering the “so-called” job. A group company called LVG Ltd was also created in 1997 to bring all the operations together. The company later acquired LetsDrive it main competitor when it went into administration in 2004. Unfortunately unlike Red, LetsDrive solely guaranteed a job with LetsDrive and couldn’t later support them in its driving school operation. In 2005 all the companies were then amalgamated into LVG limited and were no longer companies in their own right making it impossible to see exactly how each was performing. Since then its main thrust has been to promote the Red Driving School job promise approach to selling instructor training courses which from its recent accounts can be shown to be very lucrative as indeed it was for LetsDrive until they had to deliver the promised jobs. Red has cleverly learnt how to avoid this problem by being very selective in what it states particularly in the contract.

Can I get my money back?
If you can remember anything that was said by the sales person or in the literature (that was handed out) which you now know to be untrue and it was an essential fact that you relied on to make the decision to go ahead you can claim your money back for misrepresentation. Indeed if you believed it to be a job with Red, based on their latest accounts alone, it can be shown they had little intension of delivering the promised job because there is no way they could support 18,000 instructors in their driving school it might be possible to claim misrepresentation on this fact alone. However, the contract you signed might make it clear it is not a job and it is only training that is being offered with no guarantees.

If you entered into the deferred High Interest agreement because you were told by the salesman that you would be qualified within 4-6 months (or something similar) and could therefore pay it back from your earnings as an instructor this would undoubtedly be good grounds for misrepresentation. Especially, if the delay in training was not down to you or was not unusual for students on that course. In other words if the company knows full well that many students take far longer then they quoted this is misrepresentation. Similarly, if they claimed there was a shortage of instructors when there is not or quote false figures about the number of ADIs on the register etc. Indeed because such a loan results in an immediate high interest penalty almost doubling the course fee you could claim for the whole sum. If you explain to your solicitor how you were tricked into signing the agreement because the salesman told you you would be up and running earning money as a driving instructor before you had to pay the loan back a good case for misrepresentation is established.

[RedPDI]

Hi Everyone,

I have been contacted by an ITV Journalist - I have checked him out and he is the real deal and very interested in what is happening...

On a serious note:

If any of you would like your case looked into and maybe covered in a review and investigation into RED please contact me with your story including you're email address that the Journalist can contact you directly on. This investigation may end up on ITV and in the Press...

Get in touch - this is more then venting on Gumtree }

This is now your chance to be taken seriously...

[RedPDI]

Hi Everyone,

I have been contacted by an ITV Journalist - I have checked him out and he is the real deal and very interested in what is happening...

On a serious note:

If any of you would like your case looked into and maybe covered in a review and investigation into RED please contact me with your story including you're email address that the Journalist can contact you directly on. This investigation may end up on ITV and in the Press...

Get in touch - this is more than venting on Gumtree

This is now your chance to be taken seriously...

[RedAlert]

[treezmac@hotmail.com]

listen not everyone on here is slagging tic i and a friend of mine who i met at college we now buddy up have had a really positive experience and brialliant training so please dont be blinded by some peoples bad experiences they may not have been cut out for the training and maybe were a bit blinded by the red adverts on tv and the 30k you can earn good luck whatever you decide

[treezmac@hotmail.com]

red hot chili nerd what is your problem the way you talk to people is disgraceful and condecending who made you perfect, yes you are entitled to your opinion and you seem to know your subject but there is no excuse for ripping into other people who may or may not have much common sense, as an adi you should know that we all make mistakes everyday even you!! some bigger than others the people on here complaining obviously have genuine greevences with tic and neither you or i have the right to judge what they did or more importantly did not do