2004 Archive

Hot off the press, ConsumerDeals is proud to offer some special value offers to visitors to our site. Currently, we’re able to offer the following:

Dixons – £20 off a spend of £200

BT Shop – £10 off a spend of over £75 (great for phones, MP3, computing, etc)

Littlewoods – £15 off your first order over £25

John Lewis – £5 off orders over £50

These are available via consumerdeals.co.uk/offers.html

Yesterday, British Gas announced another price hike, adding an average £99 to annual bills. It’s time to switch providers – See what you can save with comparison services from EnergyLinx and uSwitch.

A quick update on the ongoing Equity Forum saga. As you may know, we launched a petition last week about Andy Zahn’s decision to force the removal of the Equity Discussion forum. The forum can be found at petitionthem.com/default.asp?sect=detail&pet=1191

Yesterday, we learnt that Pipex, the ISP hosting the petitionthem.com domain, has received a threat of legal action from Mount Street Holdings. Pipex subsequently threated to suspend the petitionthem.com domain, with the loss of all of their other petitions.

Petitionthem.com has made an edit to the fourth paragraph of the petition, to see if this will pacify MSH’s solicitor, and hopefully stave off the threat to shut them down.

It seems that the petition is an embarrement to Mount Street Holdings, and their associated companies, and they’re keen to shut it down. If you’d like to show your support, please go to Equity Forum Petition

In July, our Equity / Regis / CPM discussion forum was forced to close following a threat of legal action by Andy Zahn, the CEO of property management company Mount Street Holdings.

If you object to the idea of a company forcing an Internet Provider to remove a forum in this way, we’d ask you to show your support by signing our petition. We’d really appreciate your support!

The ConsumerDeals Equity discussion forum was today closed down following a threat of legal action by Mount Street Holdings. The reason given is that an unstated percentage of the messages posted by the company’s customers allegedly contain defamatory material relating to Mount Street Holdings plc, Equity Asset Management Limited, CPM Asset Management Limited, Pier Management Limited and Regis Group plc. The removal of 61 messages posted by Mr Andrew Zahn, the CEO of Mount Street Holdings, was also requested. As Mr Zahn has been a welcome and active member of our forum for some time now, the reason for this change of heart is unclear.

Neither Mount Street Holdings nor Equity have contacted ConsumerDeals regarding this matter. Instead, they have elected to force our web hosting company to remove of all 800 messages posted over the last year.

Equity has recently been in the news regarding a fraud probe in Vange, Basildon, Essex.

ConsumerDeals would like to apologise for the inconvenience that the forced removal of our forum by MSH has caused, both to our site visitors and to customers of Mount Street Holdings and its associates, who are now no longer allowed to have their say publicly on this site.

The Equity forum is back online, and the dispute has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Thanks to everyone for their support

The ConsumerDeals Equity discussion forum was today voluntarily suspended was suspended, following threats of legal action made against us by Peter Butler, the former Managing Director of Equity Asset Management, a property management company based in Southend-on-Sea.

The initial complaint and threat of legal action was directed at the poster of a thread entitled “Peter Butler canned over Basildon”. The message was removed, and the following statement was received from Peter Butler, and published at his request: “Mr Butler has asked us to confirm that he has resigned as MD of Equity Asset Management in accordance with his contract and in circumstances totally unconnected to any matters related to Basildon or indeed any other matter which could be construed as detrimental to his status”.

It is our understanding that “Basildon”, referred to in Mr Butler’s statement relates to the fraud probe regarding the management of 35 blocks of flats on the Chestnut Road Estate, over which Equity Asset Management claim responsibility for upkeep. This story was highlighted in the Basildon Evening Echo on the 11th of June 2004

We are in negotiation with Mr Butler to resolve this matter, and hope to be able to reopen the forum shortly.

TalkTalk are receiving a lot of press at the moment, not just as a result of their 2004 Big Brother sponsorship, but because of their special home user tariffs. By signing up for free, you can talk for free, for as long as you like, to other TalkTalk customers. For other calls, the rates are guaranteed lower than BT’s, and there’s no signup or rental fee on their standard Talk 1 plan. No catch – no minimum contract, and free calls to other customers. Hard to see how you can lose. See www.talktalk.co.uk.

BT Yahoo are now offering their Anytime dial-up service for just £1 for the first month. Details at BT Yahoo

Get free tickets to TV shows, or find out if there’s a chance of appearing on TV (a good stepping-stone to a job in television).

For listings and free tickets, go to www.beonscreen.com

10 free 4" by 6" photos from your digital images from Pixmania on Fuji professional paper

Information on how to stay safe online, check your credit status, and protect your identity, now on our new Be Safe page

Fuel prices are up in the air at the moment, and this is the time to consider switching… We’ve partnered with EnergyLinx to offer you access to their online calculator. By entering details of how much you pay, you can see what you’d save by switching gas and electricity suppliers. On average, people save around £150 a year by simply switching providers. Take a look at Energylinx Calculator to see what you could save