The BBC Inside Out Yorkshire allowed Abi Jaiyeola to make a documentary about Samuel Leeds which included lots of negative suggestions and resulted in Samuel personally doing a response video on his YouTube channel.
Previously The BBC had spoken positively about Samuel after taking interest in his development business and his financial freedom challenge.
Samuel Leeds Interviewed on BBC News
The BBC never officially apologised for Abi Jaiyeloa's poorly researched documentary, although they did retract some of their defamatory comments. their justification was that it had been “altered by a junior member of staff.”
In October 2020, the BBC Three Countries Radio did another investigation on Samuel Leeds after receiving complaints from an ex student Glad Bartram. Glad's case was investigated by Jonathan Vernon-Smith and her complaint made it to the JVS Show where The BBC team fight for consumer rights.
Unfortunately for Glad she was caught red-handed giving false information and was exposed by The BBC for just jumping on the band wagon of the Samuel Leeds smear campaign with no evidence.
Jonathan Vernon-Smith did not pull any punches when he told Glad he had seen the evidence and had no idea what she was talking about.
The full seventeen minute interview can be found on The BBC website.
Samuel Leeds responded to the second investigation positively and said
“It was great to see The BBC fighting our corner on this occasion. Jonathan was fair and to the point, unlike many journalists like Abi Jaiyeola who in our opinion didn't properly question or investigate hearsay and gossip, or those who say anything for a so-called “scoop” or to get more views.”
Samuel added,
“I did offer to go LIVE on air during this second investigation and discuss openly Glad's case. I was not taken up on the offer, which did result in Glad saying multiple lies which were fortunately were mostly picked up on by Jonathan. I will be posting the five minute highlights of the investigation on my Youtube in due course.”
The company's response to The BBC afterwards.
Dear Mr Vernon-Smith
Further to my email of yesterday … We are most grateful to you for taking a fair and judicious approach in dealing with this matter. Many journalists would have taken the easy route of relying on snippets of social media to back up their story. Since being subjected to the vitriol of an (unjustified) campaign against us, we are careful to preserve the evidence we have of satisfied clients, which is plentiful and is proving to be crucial in proactively defending our position. The previously sage advice of “ignoring the trolls” can no longer apply, given the damage they can do. We are not claiming that Glad is a troll, but we do believe she has been influenced by the campaign which pressurises our clients into claiming their money back – who wouldn’t want a refund at a time of national financial crisis?
For the record, Ms Bartram left her review on 4 January 2020, having completed two full courses in July 2019 and November 2019 respectively. So using your analogy, she had received the sofa and had sat on it! She then failed to attend other courses included in her package, which is a great shame. Secondly, we did not ask Ms Bartram to put up a video review and I notice she fudged her answer to you. She also didn’t reply as to whether or not she was incentivised to do so. Just so you know, we absolutely do not incentivise anyone to leave reviews. We welcome honest reviews, good or bad. Also, we are not a cult! We are a legitimate property training company which has succeeded in turning many people into successful property investors. For 98 of the last 101 weeks, we have featured clients who have become property professionals who derive a full-time income from property as a direct result of our training programmes, and there are hundreds more. (We missed 3 weeks due to Covid-19 before switching to Zoom).
If you’re interested in property or interested in our story, you are more than welcome to attend any of our training. We are keen to set the record straight in the face of this nasty campaign against us, but also keen to distinguish ourselves from the ‘wealth creation’ industry where some organisations do peddle dreams and false promises. We play no part in that. We offer people the chance to make money from property – there is no sounder investment than bricks and mortar, but you need to know what you’re doing and that’s the training we provide.
Thank you, once more, for your reasoned, rational and fair approach to Ms Bartram’s complaint. You have certainly restored our confidence in the BBC.
Kind regards
Samuel Leeds LTD
In Conclusion, The BBC have said mixed things about Samuel Leeds but overall positive.
Samuel says
” I would welcome a third investigation from The BBC or any other respectable journalists or mainstream media outlet. We have nothing to hide and although we do have our fair share of critics and trolls, we have more success students than any other property training company in the UK.”
