“Terrible company, avoid at all costs. I was lead to believe a rep would be visiting my salon to walk round and point out all I needed to do health and safety wise and to assist in risk assessments. I have yet to meet anyone, their "site meetings" are all done via Microsoft teams. This was 100% not what I wad told in my initial phone call. I'm.gettign know where with trying to cancel. I'm being told they have done nothing wrong and I am now stuck in a very expensive 7 year contract and still have no idea what I'm doing health and safety wise as they aren't interested in you at all once you have signed the contract”
Hi Debbie,
Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us here on Reviews.io. I was very sorry to read that you feel this way. I have passed your information onto the relevant team, so we can look into this further.
All the best,
Jessica Frostick
Client Experience Team
“Signed up to this company a few years ago for health and safety online services, informed by the sales guy I could terminate contract after 12 months, which was fine. Try to cancel contract after 18 months, informed I was tied in for 3 years. Asked to cancel just before the three year period, heard nothing. Then they auto renewed the contract for a further 3 years, advised that we never completed the correct cancellation document. Their systems are very hard to navigate and we actually gave up. Very aggressive phone calls demanding I renew direct debit on a twice daily basis.. AVOID at all cost. Horrible company…”
“As with other negative comments for Citation, we were mislead during sign up of the importance of having Citation's services to conduct health and safety in our business. They push you towards long term contracts with lower monthly costs, but once you're in, you will soon realise you can conduct everything they provide for a fraction of the cost.
Once you are in a contract there is no wiggle room, I called up to say we are not happy with the amount of service we get out of the contract, and that I would be happy to pay the cost of term that we have used and exit. I was told they "cannot do this", which essentially means they don't care they we don't get what we want from their service, they just want the money.
If you are a small business and are unsure about how to conduct health and safety in your business, I would highly recommend seeking advise on what needs to be carried out and organise the individual components yourself. You will save yourselves thousands and avoid using a company that does not care if their customers are getting a good service.”
“Extremely aggressive sales people calling from 0141 626 3326. Receive at least 1 call a week from them trying to sell (ironically) HR and\or Health and Safety services.
When told we're not interested and the named person they're looking for is unavailable or unwilling to speak to them they then get very pushy demanding to know why we are not interested and say they'll just phone back at a later date.
If this is any indication of how they operate generally then avoid them at all costs.”
“Reading your reviews there is certainly a very familiar theme with this company.
Currently in discussions with them regarding misleading contract.
Appears that there business ethics are far from professional. Morale compass way off.
Be interesting to see what they come back with. Can I ask that as there are lots of poor reviews has anyone raised concerns with a formal body to investigate their poor practice.”
“I have just been on here and I'm shocked at all the other people with the same eperience... I stupidly signed up for a 7 year contract
and 2 years have never used a single facility they offer. Its too generic and not a 1 stop solution for us at all ....I called to try and cancel this down bearing in mind I have absorbed no costs at all and they are forcing me to honor the full contract despite me not using it all....I pay in excess of £250 per month this is day light robbery. Please be very very careful if you sign up they make it very enticing to sign up for the longer term when its impossible to get out of ....”
“Rip off
Never been told of a 7 year contract
Told I could cancel at any time
Now they are making me pay 75% worth of the contract value
Bad service and greedy for money
DONT SIGN THE CONTRACT”
“I am an employee at citation, I would just like to say I have never been in a company that treats it's staff with absolute disregard for human empathy. If you are thinking of being employed by this company, do not go near them at all.”
“Sincerely - avoid this company
This is not a bad meal in a restaurant - you are signing up to work with this company for many years.
This company has no concern about you or about the contract they have agreed, they want you in, they want your money, the rest doesn't matter!!
absolutely shocking - We have a written contract in place specifying a maximum annual increase of 3%, later in the first year they then emailed a junior in the company (who had no authority with contracts ) stating there was an increase of 7%, on receipt of the invoice we pointed out our contract was maximum 3% and the reply was you received and email and as you have used the system since our email so you have accepted the increase!
Absolutely out of order - out of contract and they're not interested
Pay a bit more get a proper company”
“Unscrupulous and unprofessional, only bothered about payment and not service or value for money. We joined when we were missold - we were told we could opt out at any time, this was untrue and then when we tried to give notice at the end of our SIX year contract we were told we had been auto renewed for ANOTHER SIX years. Now we cannot afford the monthly fee of £277 for absolutely no service they insist we stay til May 2026, when we will have oaid roughly £40000 to them. DO NOT SIGN A CONTRACT”
“Shocking excuse of a company. Just been told I have automatically ‘agreed’ to a new SEVEN year contract.
Avoid these guys like the plague!!
Not really helpful in any staff issues as they only really want to cover their own backsides.
I will be seeking legal advice to have the contract terminated through the initial sale.
If I have any joy I will most certainly post it on here.
No empathy at all for what small businesses have been through the last two years, we can’t afford another seven year contract at £250 a month. Over £15,000 for the next seven years. I don’t think so.
Pete, Macclesfield”
“A very professional exterior masking a very draconian contract - don't get caught, they are more interested in holding customers to their contract then they are in anything else. Cold and ruthless”
“One star becuse I have to give something.
Like many others here my company have been trapped by the auto renewal that due to staff turnover was missed.
Have tried to get them to review but they are not interested.”
“At last, I have been able to move forward with closing our limited company.pool
Citation, and their associated company, QMS International, both went down the legal route to obtain payments remaining under their long contracts, despite our ceasing to trade. This has delayed our closure by several months and caused considerable, additional expense.
QMS International dropped its legal action, but DWF Law didn't have the courtesy to let us know. I then offered Citation just under half of what it was seeking, to avoid our appearance in the Small Claims Court, (we were defending the case), and the offer was accepted. I don't view we owed them anything, but I didn't want things dragging on until 25/11/2021, with the risk that we could lose the case and incur yet more expense.
As for our experience of Citation and of its Atlas platform:
We didn't use the Atlas platform much, after giving it an initial try. We are/were a small company and work/ed in a very specialist area. The risk assessments were not sufficiently detailed and far too simplistic. In my opinion, the pictures made the risk assessments appear very amateurish and childish.
We did use some of the relevant training courses, (Asbestos Awareness and a handful of other basic H & S courses), but the specialist courses we continued to have to source elsewhere.
I had to chase up H & S policies at renewal dates, as these were not up-dated automatically on the system by Citation. Inconvenient, when the companies we worked for were asking for them.
Our initial appointed Citation H & S consultant did not remain with us: they changed quite regularly, so there was no opportunity to forge a professional relationship with anyone.
We also had the Employment Law package. The employees' handbook was OK and up-dated when due. Other than that, we had no need to avail ourselves of their services.
Being a small company, we didn't need to use the platform for booking in employees' holidays, or for other HR matters. We conversed regularly and it would have been weird to suddenly start sending automated emails, instead of speaking.
As for their contracts: I was told one thing by the sales person, (you can walk away at any time), but the reality is that you are unlikely to receive any concessions for having to cease trading, for whatever reason. Even Covid-19, which I believe is a 'Force Majeure'.
With hindsight, I do not consider Citation to be a good choice for small, or specialist companies and, given their over-long contracts and readinesss to resort to legal action, I cannot recommend them to anyone.
A reply to Mel Johnston:
We are not in an 'unfortunate position'. Citation forced us into one, by insisting we carry on paying for a service we no longer required.
I am sure lots of Citation customers have encountered financial difficulties due to the pandemic. How many times have you instigated legal proceedings via DWF Law and the Small Claims Court?
I have read your Trustpilot negative reviews and see you even pursued a charity via the legal route.
Citation is not a company that I would ever recommend.”
“AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!
We’ve been trapped with their sales team telling us what we wanted to hear but didn’t deliver once we’d signed up. They will sign you up to a huge length of time with no way out. COVID-19 affecting you? Citation don’t care. Business in financial trouble? Citation don’t care. Want out of your contract after 3 years? Citation don’t care. You pay whatever your problems. Aggressive tactics from an uncaring company. I’ll tell what you do get from Citation though… hundreds of spam emails. Please do not use this company!! You have been warned. Oh, and by the way I know if at least 3 other local companies who would say the same.”
“Constant spam emails from referencing training neither I or my employers have signed me up to. This company is using questionnable marketing techniques which are likely to make people more susceptible to on-line scams. Too be avoided at all costs.”
“Citation is absolute sham of a company. We have been with Citation since 2017. They started off okay however, we have had alot of our queries ignored, we chose to cancel our auto renewel in 2019 which should have meant our account shut off in 2020. Its now 2021 and were still trying to leave this company. We were told Anne Jenner was our point of call, On attempting to cancel, Peter Blackwood told us anne was not our POC we had been wrongly advised and that they could do a better job, We chose not to give them another chance and wanted to leave still. This is where it went very sour. I am the office manager and on the citation account yet was refused to speak to anyone beyond this due to my word not being good enough, The business owner then called citation to cancel as they asked and we were refused to cancel again due to authorisation, although this isnt possible due to them being the OWNER. We have been in an ongoing battle to leave citation due to lack of co-opporation and the fact that we cancelled our auto renewel back in 2019. Do yourselves a favour and do not go with citation. They have no idea what theyre on about, their own staff do not know their job roles, they will refuse to help you and also refuse to allow you to leave no matter what legal channels you follow. The only reason i have given a 1 star is because i cannot give none. We are still battling with citation but have been given a leave date of July 2022 which is 2 years too late. We have exhausted every avenue. Do not join citation.”
