How Responsible become Demonstrably Irresponsible if placed in the wrong hands!
Helping ex-offenders and ex-addicts set up businesses and change their lives is a laudable goal, commended by many, in particular private investors lured by a feeling of contributing to society and helping fashion a better more socially focused place for all. However, although this is what Forward Trust, probably more aptly deemed the Backward Trust claims to do, the reality could not be further from the truth. It actively encourages some of the most vulnerable in society to trust in them, themselves people who have as much understanding of responsible lending as bankers responsible for our credit crunch in 2007, then once reeled in, proceed to state that you are ineligible because you comply with the very things they purport to support and endorse: a) your business is run by an ex-offender and b) the applicant is also an ex-offender, c) your business seeks to employ not only one but 6 ex-offenders and addicts in full-time, well-paid and permanent employment, sustained by their own sales efforts. Not to mention that the business already has in excess of 200 trading active members on its books. But no, all of this did not fall into the impossible to understand multifarious and multi-changing criterion of the Backward Trust, as this business was rejected under the dubious auspices of the blind pronouncement that the business does not demonstrate sufficient throughput capital to repay the required loans. Stop! That would be absolutely fine if that were actually true, but bearing in mind that no actual company figures were ever requested it is rather difficult to conclude how the Backward Trust came to this conclusion? Were cashflow forecasts and figures actually requested or personal wealth statements with back up documents sought, it would be one thing, but rejecting a company which would have changed the lives of a number of people and possibly a good deal more en route without even conducting the most rudimentary due diligence leaves one lost for words and certainly less able to separate the so-called responsible lender band wagon from the irresponsible. Totally incredulous from start to finish and no, we could not recommend them whatsoever. Do not waste your time, please.
