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Old 4th Jan 2021, 10:39
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Originally Posted by Bodie1
One thing I'm interested in, are the students creditors? Quite a bit of their tuition will have been forward paid. I doubt the students will have the capacity to refuse to pay the VET LOAN back to the taxpayer via the government, so the government will keep taking the payments? I seriously doubt that any tuition money will be refunded to the students by the administrator. If this is the case, will the class action target the government for charging the student for services not provided?
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BHI are the training provider and responsible for the loan itself. Soar in this case is their contractor. BHI will need to adhere to whatever the loan rules are. Either another flight school or refunds.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 12:08
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OK, let me make it a bit simpler. All roads lead back to Soar. The whole Soar Fee-Help relationship wasn't initiated by BHI. BHI will now chase the liquidator for money taken by Soar for training but not delivered?
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 12:48
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I am still amazed that a government institution (TAFE) would:
1) Do business with a company that was as at the time, as ‘green’ as Soar
2) Do very little (if any) market research into the validity of the training that Soar were actually doing.. fancy selling commercial courses using aeroplanes with Rotax engines!
Not good enough. Particularly distasteful is how a previous CEO (according to a recent post) had boasted of making millions from this (alleged Ponzi scheme) company. I’m sure it wasn’t through good hard, honest work.
Heads should roll..!
Whilst these are only my personal opinions, I will note that;
1) Rotax engines are good engines.. alas, not suitable for commercial training.
2) The aeroplanes utilised by Soar (although not unsafe) were probably not the best planes for their desired market application.
3) The most recent management structure, and team at Soar (from what I heard, and what I believe to be the case), truly did want the company to evolve.
I know the current HOO, and I know him to be ‘one of the good guys’, shall we say.

By the time the place closed, I understand that a safety culture was being implemented, and bred into the company (no mean feat - particularly given its origins).
Unfortunately however, it seemed by that point that the horse had bolted.
A pilot in a company that I associate with is an ex-Soar student. He is an absolutely brilliant pilot, and an upstanding young man. He informed me that Soar was particularly attractive to the ‘main stream’ because it was a ‘free for all’. He told me of people who seemed like total losers being signed up, with very little discretion or vetting (if any). Also, and very importantly; Soar allowed training to occur part-time, a VET-fee course like this was previously unheard of.
What could possibly go wrong!?
I am sad to see the demise of another aviation company, but I am equally sad (and angry!) to see people that have been negatively affected by it.

Caveat emptor, (Latin: “let the buyer beware”), in the law of commercial transactions, principle that the buyer purchases at his own risk in the absence of an express warranty in the contract.

(These are my personal opinions only, ..and I was drunk when I wrote it too!).

Last edited by Superfly Slick Dick; 4th Jan 2021 at 13:04.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 13:37
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The ASQA audit performed on Soar/BHI was probably the last of the real audits that will be done on an aviation fee-help RTO. It was performed by an auditor that has aviation experience, he knew what to look for, and he found it. BHI didn't have a clue what it was meant to be delivering or how to. Ask any of the students about the branding on the theory that came out of BHI. Let's just say that a PDF converter wasn't part of whomever was preparing the materials repertoire.

Soar, well, the character that created the place was well known for his business practices, ask any other flight school operator how he operated. When this character appeared on the AFR young rich list he knew what was coming, but that didn't stop him big noting. It takes a special kind of stupid to continue down that path when it was just a matter of time before the whole saga blew up in his face.

Yep, the most recent HOO is a real decent fella, but not even Alan Joyce coulda dragged that mess back above the line.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 18:41
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Originally Posted by Bodie1
BHI didn't have a clue what it was meant to be delivering or how to. Ask any of the students about the branding on the theory that came out of BHI.
Im assuming you’re referring to “CAE” logos on some of the content? I’ve seen the content you’re referring to and they are not CAE Oxford logos.
Look up CAE.edu.au and the relationship with BHI.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 20:54
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$5,200,000 / 37 = $140,540

Did they pay ANYTHING off their aircraft leases?

Yes I know there’s a twin thrown in there somewhere, but many off the Foxbats’s cost less than the above amount.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 21:32
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Soar, well, the character that created the place was well known for his business practices, ask any other flight school operator how he operated. When this character appeared on the AFR young rich list he knew what was coming, but that didn't stop him big noting. It takes a special kind of stupid to continue down that path when it was just a matter of time before the whole saga blew up in his face.
Look up "Narcissistic Personality Disorder", the grandiose behaviour gives it away. Its related to sociopathic/psychopathic behaviour. These people are very believable because they can lie convincingly with a straight face,
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 23:11
  #48 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Bodie1
OK, let me make it a bit simpler. All roads lead back to Soar. The whole Soar Fee-Help relationship wasn't initiated by BHI. BHI will now chase the liquidator for money taken by Soar for training but not delivered?
BHI are still the RTO who provides the loan though, therefore they have to deal with that side of the issue. There are mechanisms for refunds and alternate providers built into the VET-FEE Loans but who knows how good they are, although I have heard on student who was able to get refunded when I was studying.

My understanding BHI paid SOAR per flight hour (I am an ex student) with X amount of hours allocated to each cluster. If you go over this then you paid SOAR directly and they make gravy on this.

In my PPL stage we had no classroom material at all. Otherwise it mostly the same as another well known educators material.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 23:27
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Pretty certain I read online somewhere that Box Hill had to prepay for the hours to be flown.

There must be something non-traditional in the arrangement, otherwise it would be difficult to get so rich, so quickly.

There would be other schools doing similar hours, but nowhere near making the AFR rich-list.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 23:42
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Bodie1,

Yes I did make my concerns known about this and other safety issues to Soar management , then when no action was forthcoming (as expected from Neel) I reported then to RAAus and CASA.

I left them precisely because I felt uncomfortable about these flights and more. I felt someone was going to be hurt or killed, and I wanted no part of it. Unfortunately I was proven right, but that didn’t stop Neel going on to Box Hill and fleecing new victims.
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Old 5th Jan 2021, 00:47
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Zanthrus, if you took up a single person who couldn't speak English as you say then you were in contravention of the RAAus Ops Manual you realise right? Not even a grey area right there but a straight up contravention.
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Old 5th Jan 2021, 01:45
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Just in case anyone wants to know what a Sunfish looks like https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-...beach/13030788
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Old 5th Jan 2021, 02:29
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Im assuming you’re referring to “CAE” logos on some of the content?
No I am NOT talking about CAE logos.
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Old 5th Jan 2021, 02:31
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Bodie1,

Yes I did make my concerns known about this and other safety issues to Soar management , then when no action was forthcoming (as expected from Neel) I reported then to RAAus and CASA.

I left them precisely because I felt uncomfortable about these flights and more. I felt someone was going to be hurt or killed, and I wanted no part of it. Unfortunately I was proven right, but that didn’t stop Neel going on to Box Hill and fleecing new victims.
I stand corrected, well done
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Old 5th Jan 2021, 21:55
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Readers might be interested in these three articles about Soar. Here is a link to the Australian Aviation article and attached are articles from The Australian and The Age.

Information on the 2020 class action can be found at these links:

https://gordonlegal.com.au/media/123...-statement.pdf

https://www.bhiclassaction.com.au/

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Old 6th Jan 2021, 05:17
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Will there be any dollars available for distribution after all the lawyers have been paid ?

I am told the principal for Soar disappeared back to India some time September/October last year with I am guessing any assets in the bank going with him.

They will have some aircraft for sale but are these financed and the sale of the assets will go straight back to the finance companies.

As much as I think litigation needs to go ahead it worries me just how much the typical student who now has a $70,000 debt is going to get back. I imagine very little if anything at all but hope to be told I am wrong.

Meanwhile, from what I am told, someone is probably living the high life in India.
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Old 6th Jan 2021, 05:21
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Just reading more about this I notice from the Gordon legal information... Will there be anything left to pay back the students ? I really doubt it because part of the terms and conditions is that Gordon legal can charge 25% above what it would normally charge as normal fees which are probably very high anyway if it is successful. I really wish the litigation success but with low assets and high legal fees, 25% above the normal fee I am sure there will not be anything left.


In the event that the class action is successful Gordon Legal is (subject to approval of the Court) entitled to charge its clients an uplift fee of 25% of its normal fees if the group members individual claim is successful.

Then it gets even worse for the students because even if they win everything and the court is not able to get enough out of Box Hill Institute then the students will need to pay Gordon legal so this is really a risk for a student.

They could win the case, and Box Hill Institute and Soar Aviation refuses to make payments then Gordon legal will get money from students

If the class action succeeds and compensation is payable to the group members, the representative plaintiffs intend to apply to the Court for an order that some of that compensation be used to help pay a share of the costs which are incurred by them in running the group proceeding but which are not able to be recovered from BHI.
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Old 6th Jan 2021, 08:03
  #58 (permalink)  
 
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It’s the perfect process.

Some saps incur huge debts in return for an outcome they don’t get. On the back of the debts, a spiv makes millions and disappears outside reach (but gets some happy snaps with important people in the interim).

Then some lawyers step in to seek compensation for the badly-done-by saps, and the badly-done-by saps pay more to the lawyers.

It kinda comes with sap turf.

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Old 7th Jan 2021, 17:43
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It wont be about suing SOAR, the students will sue Box Hill. They are backed by the Government.
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Old 8th Jan 2021, 04:40
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I wonder if any Soar students have been able to get there student records transferred to other flying schools? Hopefully they all kept there logbooks filled out and at home.
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