Limited Company Owes Us Money

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Deleted member 138580

Hi All,

We did work for a limited company, lets call them "company A". Their emails back and forth said company A. Their website had company A's name on it.

Company A then stopped paying us and ignored correspondence. We then got a letter from their insolvency company saying bad luck they have gone into administration, here's a cheque for about 3% of what you're owed.

We haven't banked the cheque.

We've done some digging and found the director has got a history of liquidated companies.

Company A's website is still live and they are accepting enquiries and trading on a site at this moment.

The insolvency company has said we were actually working for another company, lets call them "company B".

I had no idea company B existed until this problem came about.

I'm about to throw the towel in on this as the insolvency company have said the director has done nothing wrong.

Just wanted to get a second opinion on the matter as it's hard to swallow given that the director is a serial fraudster, is still trading doing the exact same work but just under a different name and is enjoying use of his private boat at weekends!.

Any advise appreciated.
 
The director can set up a different company doing exact same work. Nothing illegal about that unless the director has been banned from being a director.

His use of a private boat is irrelevant, your debt is with a company not him.
 
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Yeh that's pretty much what the insolvency company said.

Just boils my piss that there is no law to stop people doing this. He doesn't owe us much but he owes another self employed guy over £12k so it's looking like he now has to fold too.

I thought there was some sort of phoenix company law put in place for this type of scenario?
 
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Which company did the previous payments come from?

If there was a contract, which company name was on the contract?

do you have any hard evidence demonstrating that you were dealing with company A (I think I'm right in saying that one is still trading)?

Unfortunately all the stuff about boats and other companies is completely irrelevant and distracts from the important questions.
 
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Yeh that's pretty much what the insolvency company said.

Just boils my piss that there is no law to stop people doing this. He doesn't owe us much but he owes another self employed guy over £12k so it's looking like he now has to fold too.

I thought there was some sort of phoenix company law put in place for this type of scenario?

There is law that stops people doing that. However first they have to be investigated and found to have acted in a particular way. By the sound of it this director has not been banned - but has been investigated.

Its usually a good idea not to lend these people with multiple companies folded so much money. Tighten up credit facilities, prevent lending them more money the moment they appear to be in trouble etc.
Or get personal guarantee.
 
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Which company did the previous payments come from?

If there was a contract, which company name was on the contract?

do you have any hard evidence demonstrating that you were dealing with company A (I think I'm right in saying that one is still trading)?

Unfortunately all the stuff about boats and other companies is completely irrelevant and distracts from the important questions.

No contract, and we checked, successful payments came from Company B (the liquidated company). The wording of the 2 companies is slightly different so we didn't really notice.
 
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There is law that stops people doing that. However first they have to be investigated and found to have acted in a particular way. By the sound of it this director has not been banned - but has been investigated.

Its usually a good idea not to lend these people with multiple companies folded so much money. Tighten up credit facilities, prevent lending them more money the moment they appear to be in trouble etc.
Or get personal guarantee.

Yeah I've definitely learnt an important lesson in business (and life!) and won't allow myself to get into this position again.

And I would be more forgiving of the situation if I didn't think he'd done this deliberately. Is there a way I can instigate an investigation myself?
 
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Yeah I've definitely learnt an important lesson in business (and life!) and won't allow myself to get into this position again.

And I would be more forgiving of the situation if I didn't think he'd done this deliberately. Is there a way I can instigate an investigation myself?


You could, when you found out the company was in liquidation, have paid to wind it up (not cheap). No idea if you can do that this late.
And if that investigation came up with the same facts this most recent investigation did?
 
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And I would be more forgiving of the situation if I didn't think he'd done this deliberately. Is there a way I can instigate an investigation myself?

Seriously, move on. You are just prolonging your own pain.

If it helps, you are far from the first to be caught like this. I've lost count of the times I've been approached by excited SmallCo excitedly waving a contract with BigCo, only to find it isn't what they believe.

The devil always lies in the detail.
 
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