Category: Grumps

  • 3. The lemon juice man

    The robberies

    Below is a true story about a man called McArthur Wheeler.

    On 19 April 1995, Wheeler walked into two banks in Pittsburgh, Mellon Bank and PNC Bank. He robbed both of them in broad daylight and made no meaningful attempt to conceal his identity. He even looked directly at the CCTV cameras.

    He was arrested later the same day.

    When police confronted him with the CCTV footage, he responded, in genuine confusion, “But I wore the juice!”

    When pressed on this, Wheeler explained that he had applied lemon juice to his face. He believed this would work in the same way as invisible ink and would make him invisible to cameras. He claimed to have tested this beforehand by taking a photograph of himself with lemon juice on this face. When his face did not appear in the photo, he took that as proof that the method worked.

    The key point here is that he was not guessing. He had “validated” his idea, but the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed.

    Wheeler was charged with multiple counts of robbery, convicted, and sent to prison.

    Dunning-Kruger

    Two American psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, came across the case through media reports. They set out to understand what had happened.

    More specifically, they wanted to answer a simple question. How can someone be so confident and so wrong at the same time?

    What followed was a series of controlled experiments. Participants were tested on their abilities in areas such as logic, grammar, and humour. They were then asked to assess their own performance.

    The results were consistent.

    Those with the lowest ability significantly overestimated their competence. At the same time, they lacked the ability to recognise their own mistakes.

    This became known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.

    Why this matters

    If you put a group of people in a room and had them sit an IQ test, the people who scored the lowest would be the ones who believed they had done the best.

    That is the problem.

    People in that category are not just wrong. They are incapable of recognising that they are wrong. That makes them extremely dangerous.

    In the context of professionals working in the built environment, that lack of self-awareness and inability to self-regulate one’s own behaviour can have serious consequences.

    It becomes even more concerning when the institutions that are meant to regulate professionals and protect the public appear to be asleep at the wheel.

  • 2. My week so far

    How did this week go?

    I may as well kick things off with something that landed on my desk this week. This is exactly the sort of stuff that I was talking about in my first post.

    This is something that I’ve now reported.

    There’s a firm in the north of England which appears to be regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
    One of their employees, who also seems to be a director, has appeared in two separate court bundles I’ve received over the past couple of weeks.

    Both of these bundles included a CV for this individual.

    It did not take long to spot that something wasn’t right.

    The CV

    There were two obvious issues.

    The first was that this individual claimed to be a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner. That is a protected designation, and it’s very easy to check.

    So I did exactly that. I picked up the phone and called the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH).

    They confirmed, very quickly and in no uncertain terms, that this individual is not a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner. They are a “member”, but they are not Chartered. They are not permitted to use the title Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner.

    That is not a grey area. It’s a statement that is simply not true.

    The second issue sat under a section of the CV titled “Certifications”. Under this section this individual described themselves as a “RICS Member”.

    Again, this is not difficult to verify. I checked the RICS directory and could not find them listed as a member. From what I can see, they are not a qualified member of RICS. At best, they may be a student member or something like that.

    Either way, describing themselves as a “RICS Member” in that context is, at best, misleading. This is precisely what the various RICS Practice Alerts were trying to prevent.

    Reporting it

    I sent a copy of the CV to both RICS and CIEH at the same time.

    Credit where it’s due. CIEH responded almost immediately with a clear email setting out the next steps. I have since replied, pointing them to the specific part of their code of ethics that has been breached.

    That is clause 5.4.2, which states that members shall:

    “Not present themselves as having a qualification, grade of membership, designation or experience that they do not.”

    It is difficult to see how this situation could fall outside of that. This individual has made not one, but two misleading statements about their qualifications.

    As for RICS, I have not heard anything back yet beyond an automated response. To be fair, the email did manage expectations. It explained that they are currently experiencing a high volume of enquiries and aim to review submissions within 35 working days.

    So we shall see.

    I will keep you posted and let you know if anything actually happens.

  • 1. Let the grump begin!

    Who am I?

    It’s probably a good idea to start by introducing myself, so you know who it is that’s writing this.

    My name is Oliver Wright, and I run my own firm, Oliver Wright Building Surveying. I’ve been working as an expert witness since 2015 and, in that time, I’ve been instructed in well over a thousand different cases. Over the years, I’ve become increasingly alarmed and, frankly, disgusted at the state of our industry. By industry, I mean both surveying and professionals acting as expert witnesses.

    This blog is an attempt to put some of those thoughts down. Partly as an aide-mémoire for myself, but also in the hope that it sparks some honest discussion.

    Why “Grumpy Blog”?

    If you’re wondering about the name, and the cat in the logo, there is a story behind it.

    A few weeks ago, my cat Reginald had a bit of a sniffle. Nothing serious, but enough to leave him plodding around the house looking thoroughly miserable. He’s not normally like that at all, so it was obvious that something had put him in a bad mood.

    It got me thinking that we can all be a bit grumpy sometimes, especially when things aren’t quite right.

    Over time, I’ve found myself becoming increasingly grumpy and intolerant. Like Reginald, that’s not my natural state. But the change hasn’t come from nowhere. It’s been driven by the type of work that I do and an industry that’s both toxic and hostile.

    What’s worse is the growing sense of disgust at what people are getting away with, and the complete lack of regulation that allows it to continue.

    How did we get here?

    And no, I’m not imagining things.

    Consider the following practice alerts issued by RICS:

    • February 2024, Practice Alert for Expert Witnesses
    • December 2024, Practice Alert for use of designations
    • April 2025, Second Practice Alert for Expert Witnesses
    • February 2026, Second Practice Alert for use of designations

    If you haven’t read them, don’t worry, you’re not missing anything groundbreaking.

    In essence, they say this. Expert witnesses should only accept instructions if they are genuinely experts in that area. They should not lie about qualifications, fabricate degrees, or distort their experience. Pretty simply, really.

    I find it astonishing that a professional body has had to send out multiple alerts to their members to remind them of this.

    And yet, this behaviour continues. Constantly.

    I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve come across it, and it seems to be getting worse. Meanwhile, the so-called regulators, those tasked with policing the industry, sit back and do nothing.

    That inaction is creating the perfect environment for this sort of conduct to thrive.

    Something has to change.

    The reality of fraud

    There’s a narrative that fraud, particularly among white collar professionals, is rare.

    It isn’t.

    The data tells a very different story. Research from CIFAS found that in the UK:

    • Falsifying CV qualifications is the second most common type of first party fraud
    • Nearly 18% of people in the UK have lied on a CV, or know someone who has, in the last 12 months
    • 1 in 7 people believe it’s reasonable to claim a 2:1 degree when in reality they had failed their final year at university
    • Most people would not report a dishonest colleague
    • 48% of adults believe it’s reasonable to commit first party fraud
    • 1 in 10 admit to committing it, or knowing someone who has, within the last year

    This behaviour isn’t rare. It’s widespread. But it has no place in our industry.

    What now?

    So what now?

    I’m going to start documenting what I see. The behaviour, the patterns, and where appropriate, the individuals I report.

    This blog won’t be polished or diplomatic. It is not meant to be. It’s a record of what is actually happening, from someone who sees it firsthand.

    If nothing else, it might make a few people think twice.

    And if it starts a conversation, even better.

    Welcome to Grumpy Blog.