I, along with several hundred others, bought this 'business opportunity' on the basis of the information (presented as fact) in Nigel Botterill's (NB) sales video and other promotional material. It has become apparent that the Peel2Save business opportunity was at the very least negligently misrepresented (several factors suggest fraudulently so) in the sales video and associated materials.
• NB based his claims of potential earnings and money which we would be able to raise for charity on the US model, which we now know is operated in a totally different way to the model he rolled out in the UK.
• NB failed to sufficiently test the business before rolling out across the UK. It was tested it in one area – Solihull and rolled out before he had even started selling cards to know whether they would actually sell. Solihull is not representative of the UK and to only test in one area is not enough evidence to say a business will work across the country.
• NB stated that charities and national brands were on board when in fact they were not, and in many cases they refused to come on board. Attempts by N5 staff to get nationals on board were pathetic and in the main concentrated on national brands which had presence in England, many of those you did get to sign up on national agreements did not operate in Scotland and so were useless for my card.
• NB categorically stated that charities would sell hundreds, thousands of the cards and that they would do all the selling. It quickly became apparent that this was not the case once people got their cards printed. Again if he had adequately tested the business he would have known this prior to roll out.
• NB stated repeatedly that this was a very, very, very, very part time business. It has been proven that this is in no way, shape or form a part time business. Even those who are able to put in full time hours cannot make the business work to the levels promised in the promotional material.

Factors which point to potential fraudulent misrepresentation:
• Declaration that Stuart Bevins (who operated the Solihull trial area) is not a sales person as a means of evidencing that it doesn’t take a sales person to fill a card. On his facebook page he describes himself as Head of Sales and Marketing at The Best Of which clearly contradicts this statement.
• Statements that Stuart Bevins bought his area when we now know he was given it by N5.
• Targeting vulnerable groups such as stay at home mums on websites such as franchise websites and netmums by using Lorna Bevins as an example of someone who had bought this business and was confident she was going to exceed her high targets of earnings and money raised for charity – when actually she is Stuart Bevins’ wife, was given the area and was nowhere near reaching those targets.

NB has consistently moved the goal posts when it became clear the business model that he rolled out prematurely did not work:
• Changing from ‘the charities will do all the selling’ to suggesting we take stands at fairs, go along to events and sell the cards.
• Launching the affiliate scheme which went totally against the ethos of the original business. Under this scheme charities would get less money than under the original agreements we had signed with the businesses on the card. This was totally immoral. Encouraging peelers to sell cards in this way totally undermined the whole business and put everyone’s reputation at risk.

NB and his staff have shown blatant disregard for the Peelers, the businesses who signed up for our cards and the charities we are meant to be helping.

The only decent thing to do would be to refund our investments.