Campaign to Stamp Out Fake Electricians

Submitted by Gazza on

Would you play your part in helping? Are you fed up with paying out all the time to stay legal and carry out your job according to set guidelines and regulations?

We think it is time to take a stance on the amount of individuals who get away time and time again producing inferior and dangerous work giving the electrical industry and electricians as a whole a bad name. We have named the campaign Fake Electrician.

All of us have watched and read about the publicity and consequences of unsafe work off line via television and newspapers. Its now time to take the public awareness on line – this is where many of us spend most of our time and likely to be researching a potential electrician to carry out work in our homes.

The electrical industry needs to pull together to get this campaign off the ground. The best way of stamping out unsafe practices is for professional electricians to pull together to promote the 'Fake Electrician' campaign. This will cost nothing but a little time out of our busy schedule. Many people have a loud voice – whilst there are several campaigns to help stamp out unsafe practice, none have come from electricians themselves – those who are directly affected by this and know first hand the frustration this causes and the lack of severity or response from the powers that be to it.

The aim is to significantly reduce the temptation of using a mate and help the public to identify a fake electrician. For Fake Electrician to be a success we need to be able to cut off the source. This is, to stop Fake Electricians obtaining the work in the first place. Together we can do this.

To get the campaign under way, please add your name to the bottom of this blog as a comment – you are welcome to add your thoughts but what we need are as many names as possible who support and back our campaign against fake electricians. We need signatures from across the industry to support us so whatever your interest is within the industry, we need you to join us.

Once we have obtained the signatures we can take the campaign to the next stage!

Please sign and forward this blog to someone else – lets spread the word together.

Thanks for your support,

Gary.

Comments

Fake Electricians

I for one know that from just a few 'experience jobs' that I have done, that there has been some appalling electrical work done. Which in a way is good for me because I can then make an installation safe, unfortunately I am restricted to minor works at the moment, until I can afford to register with an approved Competence scheme, and also can guarantee a steady flow of work. I'm currently on benefits and am so eager to get off them, I have support from my fiancée and family, however I just want to get on with it, but they do have a few little doubts because of my mental condition as to whether I am 'ready'. So watch this space for this year and on.
Nick(FlyingSparkie)

Flying Sparkie

Fake Electricians

Daniel Miller

having just passed my Part P defined scope , i totally agree with this . I have heard many horror stories from my friends and colleagues. The need to stamp out these individuals commiting unsafe work , breaking many rules and regulations , and leaving dangerous situations for the unsuspecting customer .The customer thinking that they have had a proper electician in , who at times decieve the customer with the improper use of a well respected logo they may use.

Fake electricians

There's too many dangerous installs out there. Borrowed neutrals, no earthing and lack of basic standards. The weekend warrior is our main problem. Stop B&q and the likes selling goods, make wholesales show proof of Napit, ECA, Elecsa and NICEIC mberships before selling goods and we might make some headway.

Stamp Out Fake Electricians

Agree, Agree, Agree...

It’s about time we stood together to bring these issues to the public, People Only MOT Cars because they have to...They Use Gas safe engineers because they have to...

Instead of making it easy for DIY'rs the government need to clamp down, Make anyone doing electrical work register and carry a card... only sell materials (like consumer units etc) to card carrying electricians.

Make inspections on domestic properties compulsory certainly when being let or sold, it wouldn’t take a lot to make things safer and better in our industry.

Genuine tradesmen will not object to tighter regulation/scrutiny they will welcome it.

Agree with you 100% there's

Agree with you 100% there's too many fakes out there and the need to be dealt with. Next we'll have corner shops posing as pharmacies and estate agents posing as architects! What is the world coming to. We need to stamp out these uneducated fools.

Fake Electricians

To often I have come across very poor dangerous work carried out by so called electricians
Over the last few years part P has drastically reduced the amount I now see. But Part P is almost toothless and people who cheat are getting away with it and it is starting again to be ignored by some. (Even on TV when people do up houses bought at auction)
BS7671 should be made Law we are all capable of making mistakes but to deliberately endanger lives and property for financial gain should be criminalised.
All landlords should be required by law to have their properties inspected and made safe as they are for Gas within their properties, Gas goes bang blows the house up and makes the headlines. Electrical faults are often silent you cannot hear or smell electricity like Gas, so there are no headlines so nobody sits up and listens, many Letting agents are starting to ignore the Electrical Inspections to lower the costs for landlords this is building up major problems for the future and safety once again is stopped and for what a few pounds and a lot of greed,
You have my full support to highlight the Fake Electricians then when thats accomplished we can start on the other points
spaldingsparks

Non qualified cowboys

I wish to also support this campaign. I'd like to clarify who in particular we should be preventing from working on the electrics, it's anybody that's deemed to be incompetant. Competance can be shown with for example, relevent qualifications, and work experience. Therin lies the difficulty of this campaign, because in theory anybody who's good enough at diy can work on the electrics; and if the local authority is informed of all notifiable work then no regulations are broken.

It seems too easy for anyone

It seems too easy for anyone to declare themselves a Spark and go into people's homes and turn out unsafe work, potentially putting lives at risk. I thoroughly agree, something needs to be done!

"What man is a man who does not make the world better"

fake electricians'

Totally agreeing with the general comments re fake electricians' , qualifications, portbale registration card etc all good - but I am fed up of the Part "P" bashers! I ahve made the effort to get along to local NICEIC workshops as they happen inmy area and without fail some "bright spark", assumedly with a full registrtation gets up and knocks us Part "P" sparks as rubbish!
 
For me, as I only carry out domestic work, it does not make any sense, finanicial or otherwise to pay for full registration membership and then to have my registration limited becasue I can only show a selected range of work during assessment! I have to get the same qualifications as any other spark and pass annual assessment and "hoop jumping" etc!  |I don't like it, but  I accept it as ameans of raising standards, keeping standards and making me keep on top of developments in the industry.
 
I'm all for a electricians' card carrying scheme in addition to registration etc., heavier fines for poor/dangerous work, and more publicity/requiremetn for those related to theecltrical industry to have to comply with BS7671 such as estate/letting agents, builders etc.
 
Pete daplyn

Gary, great subject and we

Gary, great subject and we all need to raise standards within the Industry. The quality of work is an individual ‘craft skill’. Everyone who posts on this site takes time to get involved and care about the standard of work undertaken.
One Trade Association and one scheme administered under Part P notification would help get rid of the cowboys. Reporting any sub-standard works to Trading Standards will help raise the profile.
I’ve put together a photo gallery on Pinterest showing some of the failures I’ve found recently.
http://pinterest.com/greendealeco/
Everyone is welcome to use these photos to show faults and failures, just show a link to my site in return, thanks.
http://greendealeco.wordpress.com
Working together we can drive up standards and drive out the Cowboys.
Thanks for posting.

 Improving your world without costing the earth       http://greendealeco.wordpress.com/
 

Completely in agreance... Here is my story.

I moved out of the electrical trade to move into IT at that time I was 14th edition. When I was made redundant I decided to go back to College to regain my qualifications. I might add at the age of 63 because I had to do something. Everyone is making money off the backs of tradesman it seems these days. It was a real culture shock starting again, all the organisations you are supposed to belong to, certain kit that we are supposed to use etc., and now there are businesses such as Service Magic sending god knows how many tradesman to the same job after paying up front to face irrate customers. By the way I haven't as I did my homework and found that it started in the USA they are making a fortune but leaving the tradesman out of pocket in a lot of cases. Landlords that want the jobs done but refuse to pay the going rate. That is without our EU friends. Then there is all the paperwork and I am not talking about Quotes, Invoicing etc. I'm talking about the endless forms we have to complete as qualified Electricians. I am beginning to wander if I have done the right thing. Even the apprentice training doesn't cover basic Engineering any more. This was the basis prior to specialising. With the current economic climate work is difficult to obtain anyway without all of the assult course components we have to endure.   Brian


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