AVOID Mark Granger

I believe that Mark Granger intentionally did not pay me whilst he was able to. He lied to me repeatedly and I was left out of pocket. He clearly didn't care when I sued him in the county court - because as I have discovered, he was an old hat at that!

He has no less than 10 county court judgments against him - which leads me to believe he's a serial con-man. My advice: do everything you can to avoid him, because he's back in business, and if his track record is anything to go by, he'll be up to his usual tricks! He has an astonishing £28,000 in judgments against him - unfortunate, or a real scammer?

The index for this page:
The list of county court judgments against him!
My experinces
More dirt
Mark Granger's online profiles

MARK GRANGER
County Court Judgement £36718/02/2003 JM345036 LEICESTER

MR M GRANGER
County Court Judgement £480 02/11/2002 CB204328 CAMBRIDGE

MR MARK GRANGER
County Court Judgement £1823 01/05/2003 SB300454 SALISBURY

MARK E GRANGER
County Court Judgement £225 29/06/2001 KL101097 KINGS LYNN

MR MARK E GRANGER
County Court Judgement £269 04/08/2003 XJ320911 NORTHAMPTON

MR MARK GRANGER
County Court Judgement £134 10/05/2000 GR000348 GRANTHAM

MR GRAINGER
County Court Judgement £105 02/04/1998 GR800007 GRANTHAM

MR MARK GRANGER
County Court Judgement £305 09/04/2002 QA200794 NORTHAMPTON

MARK GRANGER
County Court Judgement £1260 12/06/2002 KL200889 KINGS LYNN

MR MARK GRANGER
County Court Judgement £23630 06/11/2002 SO206479 SOUTHAMPTON

My own experince:
Mark Granger from Peatling Training gave me his word numerous times that he'd pay me the money I was owed, and I have a County Court Judgement in my favour. Despite the court ruling that I am owed the money by his company, I haven't been paid - and I'm still waiting.

If only this was a one-off case! Sadly not, Jonathan Williams, another former employee also has had to take his case to court. He also won in court a year before I was employed - and guess what? Peatling still haven't paid up.

Here's how my employment went:

I was first contacted by Mark Granger through JakeTM, the gay-business network. He wrote to me on the 22nd February 2002 asking if I was willing to run a training course on how to build webpages. I replied, went up to Cambridge for an interview and was given a part-time job immediately. The course was to be fully-funded by the European Commission and local authorities: Peatling Training Ltd received around £100 in funding per day per student. Most days I was teaching between 6 and 15 students. The equipment the students used was provided by Learn Direct (I presume for free), and the building was subsidised to encourage learning in what the EU describes as a deprived region.

At the beginning of my work with Peatling Training I was told that my holiday entitlement would be carried forward until my final salary payment, at which time it would be paid. I received my March and April payments (a few days late, but received them nevertheless) and was told that my May salary and expenses would be paid on the 25th May as per usual.

This didn't happen. I called Mark Granger endless times (link to: more dirt on Mark Granger), and was lied to by him in person. He gave me his word I'd be paid, and since I did not want to be in breach of contract, I continued working. I wasn't paid when my contract finished (Mark's word counts for nothing evidently). He went on holiday to Thailand the following month, paid for a friend to go with him (no surprises there, he was flush wish cash he'd received for the training I'd done). In the end as a last resort (or so I hoped) I hired a lawyer and eventually after lots of time and expense received £1464.20 for payment of my salary on 6th August - but did not receive payment for outstanding travel expenses (£463) nor the accrued holiday entitlement (£329.98).

I called on 14th August, and was told by Mark Granger's sister that she would ask him to call me. He did not return my call.

On 15th of August, my solicitor called the company again and on the same day faxed the company asking for the expenses and interest to be reimbursed by 22nd August. No payment and no calls came, and we issued proceedings in the County Court.

The court ruled at the beginning of October 2002 that Peatling Training should pay me £1034 with immediate effect. The payment has not been received to date (14th March 2003) - despite numerous calls from Mark informing me that I would be paid "in the new few weeks" - I should be so lucky!

Summary:
Travel Expenses:
Due £307 on 25th May 2002
Due £156 on 25th June 2002
Still unpaid (total £463)

Holiday Accrued:
£329.98 due on 25th June 2002
Still unpaid

The total, including legal fees, interest etc as declared by the court: £1034. Still unpaid.

More dirt:
I wish this was the end of the story, but during the last few days when I was working for Peatling Training, Mark Granger boasted to his sister how he had "fobbed off" trading standards who had come twice to investigate complaints about a "home gardening" course they had run. Customers had complained that despite numerous calls they had not recieved the second course pack. Mr Granger was pleased because he had showed the investigators the first course-pack which he had re-printed with a different front cover and convinced Trading Standards that it was a the second course-pack. In reality he still hadn't produced the second course-pack, and the complaints from his customers had been genuine - they hadn't received the second pack because it hadn't been produced, but Mark Granger had successfully convinced the local trading standards people that the manual did exist, and that the problem must have arisen from a loss at the post-office.

Known as:

Mark Granger uses the username Markeg on the JakeTM network (database ID number is 2504, and he is an "unapproved member")

He uses the user name: Markg on the OutPages (databse ID: 13474)

Jonathan Williams also recently contacted me about his bad experiences with this man!