Aid4ummah Arvostelua 5

A fantastic charity ibhave been supporting for several years

Warning
It is very unfortunate I have to give a star rating as I've not really used this service. There is a legitimate charity called Aid for Ummah, however, there is another business operating under the same name. It is the latter that I would like to warn about. The other business apparently is a charity but of a different kind. I'm not sure what exactly. This second one is linked to Gowing solicitors. I don't know how they are able to operate under the same name of the original legitimate company with the same name which is what makes this very fishy. They claim to deal with council housing disrepairs, mould etc. On your behalf. They could be a legitimate company but appear to take a legal stance in supporting you, through a no win no fee basis. And I'm not sure if they make this clear to the council tenants when they get them to sign up. They actually introduced themselves to me initially as being from the council, but I noticed they did not have council badges on them. They had the Aid4ummah badge on them. This sort of service should be done with with complete openness and transparency, especially if they plan to involve legal process into it. The law has changed very recently which means landlords and in this case the council must deal with disrepair and mould etc within a timely manner. So I'm not sure if their service will be required hardly except in cases where the council are not fulfilling their legal duty, which now I think would be quite unlikely. What I'm saying is, just tread very carefully with them should you find your self in the unfortunate position of the council letting you down with your housing issues. I think they're are a number of services out there that do the same thing, so you should do your research should you want to take up the legal route, which also has its own risks.

I had the same experience today: a lot of people might fall for them, especially Muslims. They are abusing the Holy word Ummah, which refers to the shared faith and belief of all Muslims. They are abusing the trust of people who would automatically trust them. Exploiting the slowness of local councils to carry out repairs, they claim they can get these repairs done quickly. This is exploiting vulnerable council tenants. DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING and tell them to go away!!!!

I had a second, uncalled for, visit this week. One of my daughters was approached as I am disabled, and getting to my front door - though it isn't far - takes me a while.
When I saw she was being hoodwinked, I called to hear we didn't need anything.
I didn't know who it was at the time, I ignore anyone who turns up at the door unknown.

FRAUDULENT - BEWARE: An 'agent' from this 'charity' knocked my door today (26th Nov 24) to see if I needed help getting my Landlord to resolve ongoing disrepair. I happened to need just that help so I became their perfect victim. After giving me some what I now know was BS, about having their own legal team and surveyors and being a well-known organisation to most major social housing providers, I agreed to the guy's colleagues following up with more info, and of course they were in the area so were at my door within a couple of hours. After successfully bating me with all the info I really needed to hear, and coming from a charity (with ID badges and speaking nice clear English) I trusted they were truthful. I signed two documents, and I questioned everything within them, nothing untoward, everything came with a plausible explanation. Basically "we'll take it from here, arrange a surveyor and then deal directly with your landlord". I received an e-mail from Gowing Law Solicitors a few hours later and attached were several documents all with my electronic signature (a photo taken from one of the forms I signed!) - including a No Win No Fee Agreement and an insurance policy with a separate firm to cover costs should I lose, with the premium coming out of my compo even if I win! These 'charity' agents mentioned nothing about any of this and have actually committed a serious crime by using my signature without my consent, something of which has been reported to the police. Do NOT sign anything with them. I'm usually quick to such BS and even I was hoodwinked, I hate to think how many vulnerable residents have been affected! The documents I've been sent says I have 14 days to cancel everything. I cancelled it immediately and to be fair it probably isn't the law firm's fault, although they should be refusing referrals from this dodgy 'charity'!