I paid Owen Davies £175 in October 2011 for a PTLLS level 3 to level 4 conversion course. Needless to say the course never took place and I never got my money back. I chased him for the money up to May 2012. At which point I gave up. The Consumers Association lawyers said there was no point in suing Mr Davies in the small claims court because he keeps moving address and therefore it becomes difficult to serve papers on him. He is very very crafty and appears to know what he can get away with. STAY WELL CLEAR. Finally I notice that the reviews have stopped. Does this mean he has stopped trading? There's hope yet!!!!

Lost contact with SPTI like so many others. Looked for another online qualifications site and found QuickQuals.co.uk Does anyone know anything about this site / company. Looking to do CTTLS Course.

I have done training and submitted my assignments since May 2011 and since the Tutor and Overall administerator David Owen who I paid to has remained elusive and unresponsive. Please do not be deceived with a change of management prank they all in it by agreement.

This person is an absolute conman, after paying £450 to him in 2010 I've still not received any certificate or qualification. He will not reply to your emails or phone calls, he should be locked up the fraudster. It's not just me who is the victim of this con, there is also another 10 people on the course who he robbed off and possibly many more. The training was absolutely rubbish, he was to busy about his 'fag' breaks than anything else. Hope this guy gets caught and put behind bars.

A group of us were encouraged to pay for training with Owen Davies. He has disappeared with our money and does not respond to registered letters or threats of the Small Claims Court. Stay well clear.

this man is a cheat and a lier, he has done nothing less than steal my money and the money of all those who have commented on this. I must say that the training was aweful and the execution of which was unplanned and careless, proven when he called in sick on the first day, and was uncontactable for the entire scheme. Please, all that read this, heed my warning, there is nothing but regret and dicontent that follows this man and his diabolic scheme to extort those who are willing to learn, and pay to do so.

i enrolled on a combined ptlls / ctlls course with SPTI in early 2011. the course price was £1000, half of which was paid by my employer and the other half in cash on the first day of training. i did a weekend course in a hotel in birmingham that was great and informative. i was a little concerned by mr davies continually going on about how big his house was and how many horses he owned but he knew his pedagogical stuff and was generally a 'good guy' the next part of the course i attended was in staffordshire on a builders yard in a terrapin hut! NOT the hotel that had been promised and in a DIFFERENT COUNTY to where it was supposed to be. since then, i have completed all of my work, tried to upload it onto the SPTI website but it is now offline and mr davies is ignoring my emails, texts and phone calls. i am now £1000 and 3 months work down. i have no qualifications, i owe my employer £500 and am none the wiser as to his whereabouts. i'm gutted, this is totally unfair and completely unacceptable. my advice to anyone is: DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH OWEN DAVIES. owen, if you are reading this. you have let down and stolen from a single parent trying to make a better life for himself and his kid. pray that the authorities catch up with you before i do.

I was lucky enough to have booked and paid for a course through a crowd called Tutorecare, after fobbing me off for a few months they then realised the extent of the damage done by this incompetent obese chain smoking loser, they gave me a refund. However, i've lost so much time with this pratt i feel that a refund was not really enough. From the very first day of my course, which funnily enough Davies did one of his famous 'No Shows' i knew there was something seriously wrong. His attitude and input to the days course was a disgrace, we learned absolutely nothing to do with PTLLS, but did learn that he had a big house, horses, and that his ex business partner ran off with a fortune, oh, and he informed us that he was earning nothing form such a small group. 10 fag breaks, a load of old waffle, and that was it. He sent anther teacher the following day, who in fairness did put in a heap of effort for us, but was alarmed at the amount of stuff we had not covered. I've had contact with her since, and she's managed to get her name off the SPTI website, which not for nothing was a pile of s***e!

I am not sure of EDI's standing. Owen was held responsible for the same procedure he did with providing SIA courses, SPTI was barred from it, but not permanently. I am not sure why didn't EDI carry out background checks with SPTI. Its utterly irresponsible from EDI's side too. I will sue EDI if I can't get hold of my refund from Owen.

And apparently EDI don't provide any support for pupils. What does their accreditation really mean??? I have submitted an FOI request to them demanding to get copies of their reviews of SPTI as well as what their criteria for accreditation is Here's their correspondence with me so far - basically telling me to contact Better Business/Citizen's Advice: .......... My first email to EDI 22 May: What do you do if one of the organisations teaching your accredited course don't respond or reply or even look like they have gone out of business? I took a week's course in PTTLLS from Owen at SPTI in Manchester in Feb. 2011. I completed the in course time (which was really disorganised and disjointed on Owen's part, both from a commercial and pedagogical standpoint, but the materials provided were good and the time spent practice teaching was invaluable - my classmates and I joked that such a poor teacher was teaching us, and all complained about the organisation), but due to personal circumstances was not able start work on the assignments until this new year. I contacted Owen by email to get the resources and assignments again then, with no response. My husband finally called him, and he registered me on his VLE, Moodle, but still I could not find on there what I needed to know in order to complete the assignments (I.e. which ones we had to hand in, reference list). So I emailed Owen again, with no response. I put the course work aside. I now have time, until the end of May, to complete my assignments, but I cannot even get in to the VLE now, which says SPTI's account has been terminated. There are no new course dates on SPTI's web site. I emailed them again today, but no response yet. I am worried they have gone out of business due to poor business-keeping and poor product delivery. Do you know if this is the case? What do you do to guarantee them as the accrediting body? Can you at least request from Owen verification that I passed the in class section, tell me what assignments to complete, and then mark them directly (or transfer them to another provider for me?) I'm really at my wit's end with this. I need to get this qualification over and done with and soon! Their response: EDI carried out a Quality Assurance visit to SPTI on 23 February 2012 to review learner portfolios. We have now finished the review of all the portfolios sampled on that day. Unfortunately we are unable to approve certification against any of the portfolios as they have not been fully completed. We have requested that SPTI contacts each learner to update them on the situation and provide support on the next possible steps. We are aware of the distress that this matter is causing learners but as I am sure you can appreciate EDI cannot provide certificates for qualifications that have not been completed. Furthermore after a comprehensive review of SPTI’s approval status with EDI the decision has been made to withdraw approval. Learners affected by this will need to contact SPTI regarding refunds or re-training. If this proves unsuccessful then local Trading Standards offices or Citizens Advice Bureaus will be able to assist regarding claiming back any money paid for the courses taken with this provider. My response: Ok, I understand, but given that SPTI have apparently known about this since February, and 3 months later SPTI have not contacted students and are not answering phone/email, is there not anything you can do to help progress this generally? I'm not interested in a refund, I just want to know what assignments to submit and to whom as I just need to complete the credential. What did EDI discuss with SPTI on the level of potential arrangements for students in this situation as part of your collaborative provision agreements? Did you suggest, for example, we be transferred to another provider? Can't you enforce this? You must have a protocol of some sort for this type of situation? Or at a minimum, can I not get a copy of "my" portfolio from you? You didn't actually state whether mine was one of those you reviewed. Can you let me know please? EDI Most recent response - comments in parentheses are mine We have not been able to find a registration for yourself. This means that SPTI did not register you with EDI so your portfolio would not be one we reviewed (Presumably there was a cost to Owen to do this). If you could please confirm your geographical area and we will be able to provide information of training providers in your area (they don't have any in Manchester, apparently). You will need to contact them directly for information on the cost and dates of the course. The qualification has changed recently and is now a 12 credit award so additional units would need to be completed. The training provider would be able to go through this with you in detail and discuss how to proceed further. (!!!!!!!!!!!! So now I am going to have to pay even more) Contact at EDI: Email: [email protected] Website: www.ediplc.com International House Siskin Parkway East Middlemarch Business Park Coventry CV3 4PE FYI the SPTI Web site is now down I haven't emailed this guy yet, but s/he seems to be organising a collective action/complaint: george.sabrina @ gmail.com Will let you know what I found out, and if nothing I am happy to organise something including a complaint/web site...will see if there's a way I can get ahold of people's details from EDI I'm going through everyone else's comments here in a sec to see what other info I can collect

Obese Dishonest and Nicotine dependant is now way to go through life Owen. I learnt more about your horse training, and your ability to buy a pair of Mercs just like that, than any thing useful on your 'Training Course" you are an Absolute Disgrace, a bottom feeder. I hope the authorities get ahold of you before your paying clients do. Has this guy got now morals what so ever? I hope with the amount of reviews this looser cannot carry on in the training course environment. Absolutely Shocking. before i purchased this course i would have liked to have seen footage of Davies at work in the classroom. Coco the Clown springs to mind.

I started this course last year and paid £450 I was told it was a four day course and it only ended up being one and after that I could never get hold of Owen Davies agen, he has just robbed people and shudnt be allowed to get away with this.