global communication / image trade Chelmsford

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Does anybody know anything about them they have done work for me for a couple of years but I cant contact them

 

[George GJL]

Hi Jeremy,

I have used GCS for the past year. Seemed like a great deal.

I presume you have now had a letter about the sudden change in charging for 'free' minutes.

Have you signed up with TTNC?

George

 

[dream clean]

Hi

I had the same problem, e mail them they rang me back straight away, failing that speak to TTNC and ask them to e mail the director, you will get a call in 2 hrs

Nick

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Hello George

To be fair to them you cant expect them to go on forever providing the free service .I think I paid about £50 for that number.
They have taken a bit of stick over this whole 0800 number thing.

I have divererted that number to the landline. Less and less people are dialing the 0800 now as many calls are made from moblies.

 

[George GJL]

Fair comment but it wasn't us that came up with the deal.

I think that would have suffered less by openly approaching their customer base and discussing their situation. IMHO, that opportunity has now passed and customers are now forced to either accept the new charges for diversion to a mobile or to a landline for free. Most customers will have their numbers listed in current adverts and therefore must maintain the service. I must divert to my mobile and so must pay for the service. I would have been happier, not necessarily very happy but none the less happier, to pay Global the new charge if they'd given me the choice. Now I'm looking at their other companies that I spend money with.

More importantly for the forum I seem to have 3 amounts taken from my plastic that I've no knowledge of or invoices for. So please check your statements.

 

[David Cross]

Hello George,
Re-the mystery card transactions from global, had the same thing happen but spotted it straight away, couldn't conntact global on the phone sent em a stroppy e-mail and got my money back.
thank God
Still not sure what to do re the numbers we've lost tried contacting ttcm? who are they do you know?

 

[George GJL]

Hi David,

I email Global and Paul Johnston replied. He is looking into the payments.

I have adverts running with my freephone number which I have to divert to my mobile and so I ended up going with TTNC who seem to be on the ball. They seem OK but who knows!

Did Global say why they took the payments?

George

 

[assuredplumbing &heating]

They are now in administration!!!

 

[George GJL]

Cheers 'Assured'. Grrrr....

 

[George GJL]

Just had the following system admin message -

To: 'Paul'
Subject: RE: Payments taken without authorisation
Sent: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:48:43 -0000
did not reach the following recipient(s):
[email protected] on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:49:00 -0000
The message could not be delivered because the recipient's destination email system is unknown or invalid...

GGGrrr...

 

[PhilWarman]

Get in touch with your card company and report the transactions

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

It never rains but it pours .!

 

[assuredplumbing &heating]

I was thinking the same, i tired to delve into it on companies house but could not find anything , If you are going to complain to Ofcom i will do the same i feel as if i've been had over

 

[Teflon dan]

I have over £900 in a six page website with Global communication. They were also in the process of building another three. Desperate not too lose these so any advice much appreciated.
Teflon Dan

 

[Teflon dan]

I have 4 websites with Global Communications, can someone please advise on what I should do to get them from them.
Teflon Dan

 

[cjd]

If one of you can PM me one of their numbers I can see if they can be ported (transferred) to another provider. It may be possible if they host their numbers with a legitimate telco.

 

[rob301ski]

I have gone to another hosting company and I'm having the website copied and then hosted by them. I have the domain in my name so I can do this. I'm told that I have a legal right to my data but how can you get this when the Global phones are disconnected. Nominet are very helpful check with them who owns yr domain name. If you have this it will help. I will confirm if my websites changes over ok & will ask the new hosting company if they will help other ex Global customers. Regards RW

 

[Link Security]

I had to sign up with TTNC after Global vanished. My number was reinstated almost immediately. Let's hope they are honest folk running that company! I ought to have smelled a very large rodent the fist time GCS bilked my cc fo a couple of hundred quid. One stroppy phone call (YES! I did get through-that time) got me a refund by cheque. Which cleared ok. Then [removed by mod - unnecessary] took it out again later. Later their phones stopped working...hmmm communications not global anymore then? Then they extracted 2 x £115 last month. A very rude e-mail got one of those refunded back to my card. The bank is dealing with the other two items. [removed by mod] Until now. And I haven't even got to the web site they were supposed to be building for me since September. Paid for in advance of course...ho hum!!! I've e-mailed the administrators. I'll let you know what happens, if anything does.

 

[Teflon dan]

It looks like the domain names are registered to us(spoke to Nominet). Fast Host Internet are hosting our websites I have tried to get them to send me my files and transfer my websites to me but they are not being very helpful saying the agreement they have with my website is with Global Communications and not myself. Have also spoken to the liquidators and they say that Imagetrade is still trading and not effected, but I don't think this is correct.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I dont see any reason why we should see problems with the new company as Global bulked purchased from them and had nothing to do with them.

I am concerned about the website I do have another account with fasthost for my removals web site so I might have a word with them.

My feeling is when the money stops flowing in from global they are bound to contact the site owners just the same as the phone company has . They are not going to just give up on this revenue .

 

[BroFergie]

Seems many businesses have been taken in with GCS/Image Trade. I purchased a Freefone number from them for £116.33 with1,000 free minutes for life[/font]. Received a letter a couple of weeks back dated 19th February 2010 saying that due to changes within the telecoms industry that they could no longer divert calls to a mobile number free of charge, but they could continue to divert to a landline to include the free minutes.

On Tuesday of this week I received a text message to say that my Freefone number would be disconnected within 24hrs as GCS has gone into administration.

Furthermore I purchased a web site and an search engine optimisation package from them back in October last year, which after constant phone calls was only completed in February with the SEO package having been supposedly completed on Monday of this week.

I too have had unauthorised payments charged to my credit card one for £115.00 charged in January and a second payment of £117.50 charged in February. My emails to one of the financial directors Paul Johnston went unanswered and after repeated phone calls I managed to speak with another financial director Phil Bedford. Mr Bedford said he would look into the two payments which in his words must have been an 'administration error' and have them credited to my account. Barclaycard have been extremely unhelpful and despite having no invoice or receipt for the transactions they have merely suspended the interest on the payments until my claims have been investigated.

So, no Freephone number, two credit card transactions that have not been refunded and doubts regarding my new website and how long it will remain live? I feel it's probably best if I have the website transferred to a new hosting company but I'm unsure how to go about it and I'm wondering if I should take the risk of transferring my Freefone number to TTNS?

As far as I'm concerned I have been mis-sold and have had money fraudulently charged to my credit card but seem unable to do anything about it due to the fact that the company are in administration.

Comments from others who have had the misfortune to deal with Global Communications would be much appreciated.

Fergie

 

[cjd]

. Received a letter a couple of weeks back dated 19th February 2010 saying that due to changes within the telecoms industry that they could no longer divert calls to a mobile number free of charge, but they could continue to divert to a landline to include the free minutes.

Nothing has changed in the industry - offering free diverts to mobile number for life from an 0800 number was always an impossible business model.

TTNC are a decent company and their business model works so at least you have a solution there.

If you like to look at other options for your number, let me know what it is and I'll see if it can be moved.

 

[BroFergie]

Nothing has changed in the industry - offering free diverts to mobile number for life from an 0800 number was always an impossible business model.

TTNC are a decent company and their business model works so at least you have a solution there.

If you like to look at other options for your number, let me know what it is and I'll see if it can be moved.

Thanks for your reply in response to my post. Global Communication are undoubtedly a [removed by mod] company, which has been clearly demonstrated by their mis-selling of Freefone numbers and the fact they have [removed by mod] charged customers credit card accounts. Seems now that they are in administration they are unanswerable and will no doubt start up another company operating similar [removed by mod].

I just don't want to get caught out again and the fact that TTNC are also based in Chelmsford sets off alarm bells. Providing TTNC are in no way connected to Global Communications then I would probably transfer my number to them. My only concern is the use of my credit card and whether customers receive adequate notice together with receipts of any payments charged to their credit cards.

 

[Teflon dan]

I think Imagetrade/Webbuilt4U are still trading so we should be ok with our websites. We just need to make sure we get the files just in case they go under.

 

[BroFergie]

I think Imagetrade/Webbuilt4U are still trading so we should be ok with our websites. We just need to make sure we get the files just in case they go under.

Have you managed to contact Imagetrade since the annoucement that GCS has gone into administration? I tried contacting them using the telephone number on their website and the invoice they sent me but the line seems to be disconnected.

I contacted Barclaycard for about the 10th time and was finally sucessful after using the 'FRAUD' word. Had a good chat with one of the fraud investigators who told me that they had have numerous complaints regarding unauthorised transactions being charged to cardholders by Global Communications. The person in question was very helpful and gave me details of the administrators.

KSABR
141 Parrock Street
Gravesend
DA12 1EY

Tel: 01474 532862


Also phoned KSABR to find out the situation and was told TTNC called in the administrators on Monday after GCS had defaulted on payments. It was confirmed that Image Trade are still operating, albeit from the same offices, but their email & phones are down. The invoices that I have received are from Image Trade but payments were collected by Global Communications.

Was advised to write to Image Trade and request copies of the files so that I can salvage the website and transfer it to another hosting company.
Despite Image Trade still operating it's uncertain how they are tied into Global Communications and how long they will continue to trade. I would advise anyone who has had business dealings with either company and who has suffered any financial loss through business transactions or by fraudulent credit card transactions to contact the administrator and their credit card company.

 

[BroFergie]

I have gone to another hosting company and I'm having the website copied and then hosted by them. I have the domain in my name so I can do this. I'm told that I have a legal right to my data but how can you get this when the Global phones are disconnected. Nominet are very helpful check with them who owns yr domain name. If you have this it will help. I will confirm if my websites changes over ok & will ask the new hosting company if they will help other ex Global customers. Regards RW

Were you able to get your website transferred without having to obtain the files from Global/Image Trade? Would be very interested transferring to another hosting company as I have no trust in Image Trade and feel that it's only a matter of time before my website goes offline. Any information you can provide in order for me to transfer would be much appreciated?

 

[james.hill]

If anyone would like, I can download and save the websites. Anything behind the scenes such as visitor statistics would be lost, but I can easily save a copy of what the viewer sees when they visit the site.

I'm sure there are also tools or software out there that will do it for you, but I only know the techy way of doing things off the top of my head.

 

[Teflon dan]

Image trade are still trading as I have been called by a guy called Chris trying to sell me more websites £99 guarantted to be completed in 7 days. Sounds too good to be true!!!
Teflon Dan

Have you managed to contact Imagetrade since the annoucement that GCS has gone into administration? I tried contacting them using the telephone number on their website and the invoice they sent me but the line seems to be disconnected.

I contacted Barclaycard for about the 10th time and was finally sucessful after using the 'FRAUD' word. Had a good chat with one of the fraud investigators who told me that they had have numerous complaints regarding unauthorised transactions being charged to cardholders by Global Communications. The person in question was very helpful and gave me details of the administrators.

KSABR
141 Parrock Street
Gravesend
DA12 1EY

Tel: 01474 532862


Also phoned KSABR to find out the situation and was told TTNC called in the administrators on Monday after GCS had defaulted on payments. It was confirmed that Image Trade are still operating, albeit from the same offices, but their email & phones are down. The invoices that I have received are from Image Trade but payments were collected by Global Communications.

Was advised to write to Image Trade and request copies of the files so that I can salvage the website and transfer it to another hosting company.
Despite Image Trade still operating it's uncertain how they are tied into Global Communications and how long they will continue to trade. I would advise anyone who has had business dealings with either company and who has suffered any financial loss through business transactions or by fraudulent credit card transactions to contact the administrator and their credit card company.

 

[BroFergie]

Image trade are still trading as I have been called by a guy called Chris trying to sell me more websites £99 guarantted to be completed in 7 days. Sounds too good to be true!!!
Teflon Dan

Something stinks here!!! GCS Ltd are the company that I dealt with initially and were the company I paid for the 3 business transactions that I made, and have continued to charge unauthorised payments to my credit card before going into administration, but the invoices issued for the original transactions were issued by Image Trade who are still trading??????

 

[BroFergie]

If anyone would like, I can download and save the websites. Anything behind the scenes such as visitor statistics would be lost, but I can easily save a copy of what the viewer sees when they visit the site.

I'm sure there are also tools or software out there that will do it for you, but I only know the techy way of doing things off the top of my head.

That would be extremely helpful James!

My website address is

direct-electrics.co.uk

Many thanks

 

[james.hill]

http://www.walleteer.co.uk/www.direct-electrics.co.uk/index.html
http://www.walleteer.co.uk/www.direct-electrics.co.uk/files.zip

Hopefully that'll help you sleep better =]

I can help transfer the files somewhere else and make sure the 'contact us' form works for some beer money. If not, all you need to do is arrange webhosting, upload the files in files.zip, and make sure your DNS is working correctly. You'll also need to sort out the 'contact us' form, as I can't get that off the old site.

James

 

[BroFergie]

Many thanks James, no doubt I will be in need of your services again. I will let you know what the situation is regarding Image Trade, providing I can get in contact with them by phone or email!!!

 

[Teflon dan]

Image Trade are still working, they phoned me today regarding my website, I asked them to do some alterations and they were done straight away. Not saying we are out of the woods yet but fingers crossed.
Teflon Dan:|

Something stinks here!!! GCS Ltd are the company that I dealt with initially and were the company I paid for the 3 business transactions that I made, and have continued to charge unauthorised payments to my credit card before going into administration, but the invoices issued for the original transactions were issued by Image Trade who are still trading??????

 

[theyhaveitcoming]

i too spoke with barclaycard about 3 transactions taken from my visa card and they told me there have been so many complaints that they are referring the account to the police for investigation. the fact that i signed up with one company "image trade" and the charges were taken by "global communications" is a clear breach of the credit card rules and visa are also taking action to blacklist the directors which as a previous poster says are paul johnson and philip bedford. not long now until the police will probably arrest them and charge them for fraud. i also spoke to the administartors and they said it is very likely that johnson and beford will be banned from being directors by dti as they have run a company insolvently for months and have not filed any accounts for global or image trade despite many comments from paul johnson saying they have. on this basis i think it very likely that the websites from image trade will also vanish one day without a trace. my advice is this. stop your credit card. this stops image trade taking money from it. demand your website goes to another company. change your global number to ttnc and lets hope ttnc are a good company. if i do not get refunds from barclaycard i am going to take court action against johnson and bedford. and by the way they probably new global was going down and have moved money from global to image trade and are paying themselves loads of fat cat bonuses.

 

[malcolm69]

I would recommend anyone who has a .com website or one being designed by Image Trade, to write a formal letter and mail it, recorded delivery, to those criminals ordering them to transfer all ownership of websites to their rightful owners within five days. The reason is, Image Trade are the webhost and registrants of your website domain names at Verisign and Twocows, the American and Canadian facilitators of Domain Name System. Thus, Image Trade legally owns your website. If this action is not taken and they go into administration, which I am certain they will, you will lose every legal control of your website and after the one year hosting period your website will simply seize to function or vanish.
In your letter, ask them to give you the following and they are obliged to do so.

1. FTP access for the website ( Fasthosts account)
2. A backup of your current database
3. Change the IPS tag of the domain name to FASTHOSTS

You will definitely need all the above when you are transfering to a new website host.

This is not an information I have made up. NO. It is a result of my own investigation which is still going on because of my transactions with Image Trade. If those of us who have been adversely affected by Global Communications dodgy dealings take this action we would save our businesses. Copys of these letters can be sent to the Communications Ombudsman, Trading Standards, KSA (the administrators of Global Communications take-over) and your solicitor if you have one.

I came to these findings after I commisioned Global Communications/Image Trade to design a website for me in November, 2009. I had to listen to stories upon stories, though I had paid them the full fees charged, until the website went live March 12, 2010 only to find out that the work was not only uncompleted but, a copy and paste of other websites in images and word content. After expressing my disgust about the work and their infringement on copy right laws and, following up with incessant phone calls and emails Phil Bedford, the so called, sales director promised me verbally on the telephone that the website will be amended and completed on March 25. I am yet to see any changes and their phones are dead as well all emails now dysfunctional. We all know the rest of the story so please, let us take this action collectively to avoid further frustration.

I will post further developments on every outcome.

 

[malcolm69]

When you are looking for credible website designers, I would suggest using recommendations or go to quotes.computerweekly.com.

Fill the questionnaire and a representative will call you to discuss your expections on the phone. Your information will be passed on to eligible and competent designers who will call you to dicuss whatever you want your website to achieve and send you quotes. The positive thing with these professionals is that they will welcome you to their places of work if you decide to visit them. Also, you pay a part of the payment of the fee before work commences and the final payment when everything is completed to your satisfaction. The experience I have with them is they are sincere with you about when the work will be completed. Some will tell you in a week and others will be frank with you that they will need six weeks and nothing less.

It is worth trying.

 

[Atilla]

I think Imagetrade/Webbuilt4U are still trading so we should be ok with our websites. We just need to make sure we get the files just in case they go under.

Nope, according to companies house their status is 'dissilution'.

 

[malcolm69]

Image Trade are still working, they phoned me today regarding my website, I asked them to do some alterations and they were done straight away. Not saying we are out of the woods yet but fingers crossed.
Teflon Dan:|

Did you ask for any telephone numbers, email addresses and contact details? Could you post them on here if you did and if not would you please, try to get any contact details when the get in touch with you the next time.

 

[BroFergie]

I would recommend anyone who has a .com website or one being designed by Image Trade, to write a formal letter and mail it, recorded delivery, to those criminals ordering them to transfer all ownership of websites to their rightful owners within five days. The reason is, Image Trade are the webhost and registrants of your website domain names at Verisign and Twocows, the American and Canadian facilitators of Domain Name System. Thus, Image Trade legally owns your website. If this action is not taken and they go into administration, which I am certain they will, you will lose every legal control of your website and after the one year hosting period your website will simply seize to function or vanish.
In your letter, ask them to give you the following and they are obliged to do so.

1. FTP access for the website ( Fasthosts account)
2. A backup of your current database
3. Change the IPS tag of the domain name to FASTHOSTS

You will definitely need all the above when you are transfering to a new website host.

This is not an information I have made up. NO. It is a result of my own investigation which is still going on because of my transactions with Image Trade. If those of us who have been adversely affected by Global Communications dodgy dealings take this action we would save our businesses. Copys of these letters can be sent to the Communications Ombudsman, Trading Standards, KSA (the administrators of Global Communications take-over) and your solicitor if you have one.

I came to these findings after I commisioned Global Communications/Image Trade to design a website for me in November, 2009. I had to listen to stories upon stories, though I had paid them the full fees charged, until the website went live March 12, 2010 only to find out that the work was not only uncompleted but, a copy and paste of other websites in images and word content. After expressing my disgust about the work and their infringement on copy right laws and, following up with incessant phone calls and emails Phil Bedford, the so called, sales director promised me verbally on the telephone that the website will be amended and completed on March 25. I am yet to see any changes and their phones are dead as well all emails now dysfunctional. We all know the rest of the story so please, let us take this action collectively to avoid further frustration.

I will post further developments on every outcome.

Thanks Malcolm, that's very useful information. In my own case I have a .uk website managed by Fasthosts and not a .com

Would it just be a case of me requesting FTP access for the website ( Fasthosts account) so that I could have control of the website?

I have had an email from an employee of Image Trade and he told me he was aware of the postings of this forum and has offered to zip all the files, everything, even the artwork.

Will wait and see if it acutually happens and inform you all of the outcome.

 

[malcolm69]

Thanks Malcolm, that's very useful information. In my own case I have a .uk website managed by Fasthosts and not a .com

Would it just be a case of me requesting FTP access for the website ( Fasthosts account) so that I could have control of the website?

I have had an email from an employee of Image Trade and he told me he was aware of the postings of this forum and has offered to zip all the files, everything, even the artwork.

Will wait and see if it acutually happens and inform you all of the outcome.

The .uk websites can be found with Nominet, based in Oxford. I will recommend you contact them and explain your situation. If you have a contact medium, to Image Trade, please unleash an aggressive campaign to get the files and everything to do with your website. Not a single person in that organization has scruple, moral compass or posses any ethical value to run a decent business so pester them to get the files. They lie about everything so put real pressure and don't be nice to them if you want results. The words polite and courtesy doesn't exist in their vocabulary.