I've seen the bit about the Trading Standards on facebook and its a difficult one, Trading Standards deal with dodgy, counterfeit, dangerous or ill described goods, what was the issue here and who was sold what? Trading Standards aren't the people I would approach on these occasions, If there has been a direct lie, or the adverts clearly misrepresented what the punters or stall holders got for their cash. I know this is a bit brief, but they have no powers to insist that the organiser reimburse the stall holders, that would have to be, if not voluntarilly (SP??) by an order of the court. It is unlikely that Trading Standards would take action as the alledged offender is not a resident or resident trader and the problem will have gone away after that weekend.
I have seen one trader who obviously had more money than sense throw a small claims court action against an organiser, but the organiseer had scrubbed his web site and it was all a bit, he said that etc, pretty subjective and it was a case of good money after bad. If people keep their ear to the ground he wont be organising much more, his cv on Linkedin is a pathetic justification of a reported 20 year successful career in media event management.
One of the things that sounded the alarm bells for me was when I looked at his website, it said
"Of course selling stuff is important. But equally important is seeing and being seen. That’s why we invite retail buyers and talent and media scouts to Handmade’s events for free."
Anyone who makes and sells on this scale will not care a toss about retail scouts, he quite clearly is not in touch with his exhibtors! Important seeing and being seen??? cobblers, dont make an ounce of difference what events you are at, if anything being at that delapidated car boot sale can only do your image harm!
