Successful court outcome protects GSA customers

A successful court outcome will help to make sure customers can contact us and get their enquiries dealt with more effectively.

On Thursday 9 November we secured a legally binding undertaking from Ben Jenkins, who owns and manages a website called GSA Residents.

Mr Jenkins’ actions have significantly affected our customers, who have been encouraged to report issues with their service or home to him through his website rather than directly to us, meaning their concerns can’t be dealt with effectively.

We have spoken with some customers who have contacted Mr Jenkins through the GSA Residents website thinking that they were contacting GSA; resulting in unnecessary delays in us dealing with the issues they have raised, or in some cases complaints not being passed on to us at all. 

Over the last few years, Mr Jenkins has contacted GSA hundreds of times through various channels, including email, phone, and text. He has also contacted colleagues using their personal mobile numbers to send unsolicited messages, texts, and videos.

This has had a significant and detrimental impact on these colleagues and their ability to provide services to our customers. His actions have used up many hours of GSA time that could and should have been spent dealing directly with customer issues.

In the legal undertaking Mr Jenkins agreed:

• He can’t contact GSA in any way – this includes any GSA employee or our agents or contractors directly. This includes through work or personal email addresses, by telephone or messaging, or via social media.
• He will remove certain website pages and make it clear on others that he can no longer contact us on behalf of our customers.

This undertaking is legally binding and any breach of it will be dealt with as contempt of court.

We would like to make it clear to customers that the quickest way to get an issue with your service or home resolved is to contact us using the details provided on our contact us page.

If we have not been able to deal with your enquiry in a satisfactory way, full details of how to make a complaint (including details of how to contact the Housing Ombudsman Service) are available on our complaints page.

The GSA Residents website is not a means to contact us, and Mr Jenkins will no longer be able to contact us on your behalf. If you have previously raised issues on the GSA Residents website it is likely that they have not been passed on to us, and we would urge you to raise them with us directly.