{"id":209443,"date":"2020-12-28T10:47:49","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T08:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/?p=209443"},"modified":"2021-03-04T09:50:51","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T07:50:51","slug":"carte-blanche-exposes-sa-butler-academy-marketing-deception-first-exposed-on-whaletales-blog-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/carte-blanche-exposes-sa-butler-academy-marketing-deception-first-exposed-on-whaletales-blog-in-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Carte Blanche exposes SA Butler Academy Marketing deception, first exposed on WhaleTales Blog in 2013!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"Seven years ago I wrote a story about the South African Butler Academy, and its marketing deception, having had the poor experience of employing one of its Butler graduates in my Whale Cottage Camps Bay, which I owned at the time. Yesterday Carte Blanche took up the story, highlighting my story of seven years ago, as well as that of Lin Yang, a Singaporean student, who was expelled from the Academy a year ago for being late one morning, and who is unable to get her money back. Once again, the deceptive marketing of the SA Butler Academy was evident when its management was interviewed by Carte Blanche presenter Derek Watts.<\/p>\n

Six weeks ago the Carte Blanche team of producer Michael Duffett, presenter Derek Watts, and\"\"\u00a0a cameraman came to my home, to film my side of the SA Butler Academy story. My interview, plus that of student Lin Yang and an anonymous student, with the SA Butler Academy owner Newton Cross and its Training Manager Braam West, formed the essence of the eleven minute insert. In brief it summarises various misleading and blatantly untruthful claims made by the Butler Academy, which are laughed off by Cross and West in the interview, or deferred to the pending court case, Cross completely misusing the term \u2018sub judice\u2019. Classic is Derek Watts\u2019 sarcastic questions and comments to the Butler Academy representatives, and even funnier is their clowning tap dancing to avoid answering the allegations! Comments that I have received about the representatives and the Academy, after seeing the program, include \u2018slime balls\u2019, \u2018the guy is a bullduster. He came off very badly\u2019, \u00a0\u2019these guys are so fake omg<\/i>\u2019, and \u2018….. but the fool did notice he was on a hot spot! He became increasingly more idiotic and glib in his responses!\u2019 .\u00a0<\/i>One commentator went as far as predicting that this is the end of the SA Butler Academy.<\/p>\n

In publicizing my participation in the Carte Blanche insert, I noticed yesterday that I could no longer tag the SA Butler Academy on Facebook and on Instagram. I went to the Academy Facebook page, \"\"and saw that it has been posting furiously in the past few days, obviously since they received notification of the broadcast date, posting almost every hour,\u00a0compared to every few days in the past! It makes the Butler Academy look even more guilty.<\/p>\n

As I do not have a DStv subscription, I could not see the program. My friend Gary Peterson kindly recorded it for me on his phone. \u00a0I have since received a YouTube link of the programme: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=D1gCTW1aVFM<\/p>\n

An eleven minute insert cannot cover in detail the story behind the Carte Blanche insert, so I have summarised my and Lin Yang\u2019s experiences with the SA Butler Academy below.<\/p>\n

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My SA Butler Academy story<\/b><\/u><\/p>\n

For my Camps Bay Guest House I appointed Hettie, a graduate of the Academy in 2013, recruited via Gumtree, delighted initially that she was a trained Butler via the Academy, but she left after four days, not following Labour Law protocol, not taking instructions, washing dishes rather than dealing with guests, and secretly recording conversations between myself and my staff and my guests. I called Adriaan Coetzer of Guild Recruiting, the recruitment arm of the Butler Academy, which takes a 25% fee for its student placements for a year, and expressed my disappointment about the calibre of the student. Whilst sympathetic to me about my poor student experience, his tone changed when he emailed a reply to me, making me responsible for everything that she had done wrong. I awarded a Sour Service Award to the Butler Academy, and so started a Social Media war, the Academy finding every negatives mention about myself and my guest houses, in an attempt to discredit me. They were so infuriated that they created a page on their website in \u2018honour\u2019 of me, not realising that they were sending more readers to my Blog! They have given the same honour to Lin Yang on their website!<\/p>\n

Glasfit Sweet Service and The South African Butler Academy Sour Service Awards!<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n