Earth Mobile Ceased Trading can anyone help

Laubirch

Has anyone else had any luck getting there phones back or any correspondence?? I sent mine off beginning of July and havent heard anything even though i have contacted Trading Standards with all my details....

laticsforlife

I think that if you haven't yet had your phone, then it isn't still at their ex-premises (as they'd already sold it on), and therefore all you become is a creditor of the Company along with everyone else they owe money to (eg utility companies, landlord, HMRC, suppliers, staff wages-although wages comes higher up the list of first to be paid).

We (the general public) are in the group as non-secured creditors, so unless they have assets to sell (and I doubt that) then you won't ever see a penny.

It's a dead parrot.

RubyTuesday76

TradingStandardsOfficer wrote: »

Mr K - I think this is a bit unfair. I had PM correspondence with you a fortnight ago.

- Rob

Hi Rob,

Its sounds like your doing a fantastic job with this issue at the moment, I sent a copper coloured sony ericcsson K800i and 1 black MDA Compact II(2), T-Mobile with a missing pointer. Unfortunately I didnt think this was going to happen so did not put my name on the envelope (white jiffy envelope)

I have an order number didnt get the £38 I was expecting and its a hell of a lot of money to me right now.

Is there any chance you could help?

Ruth

TradingStandardsRBWMonly

Hello

I thought it might be useful to post an update.

Currently we are sending over a list each week for a batch of phones to be 'hunted out' by Earth Mobile, and they are reporting back which are found amongst the stock held.

In order to compile those lists I am mainly looking at the complaints logged on Consumer Direct, and where I find insufficient detail has been recorded and passed to me (in about 90% of cases), I am writing, emailing or telephoning each consumer for further information, which is a slow and time consuming process. Those that have logged all the information with Consumer Direct, make/model/IMEI/distinguishing features, etc. are going straight on the list.

Phones found against my list are simply returned to the consumer by Earth Mobile and in some cases the consumer will let me know they have had it back and I cross them off the list. I have been working backwards from the oldest reported complaints towards the more recently reported ones.

We are now nearing 300 phones sent back to consumers. I still have several hundred cases to look at.

I know the next question will be - "what if my phone is not found" - I intend to do another posting next week to answer that more fully, but in the meantime I am still devoting most of my energy looking at every individual complaint that has been logged with consumer direct and concentrating on the repatriation effort. It is only after all the phones have been returned that can be returned then it will become clear whom is not getting a phone back.

If there is any chance that your phone may have been rejected at point of delivery to Earth Mobile - particularly if it was sent close to the 'ceased trading' date around 9 August, then it is worth a try to see if Royal Mail have it at the Belfast National Returns Centre. The advice is to call 08457 740740 so that a 'find my item' request can be instigated.

If you can give me further information regarding your phone such as would help pick it out of a pile of identical phones, then please log it with Consumer Direct on 08454 040506. Did it have a quirky ringtone or startup screens?; any stickers/marks/scratches that would set it apart?; Anything specific stored in the phonebook?; Was it in an unusual case?. It is also worth stressing the usefulness of having the IMEI number, this is the individual handset identity number that we should all note down in our diaries in case it ever gets stolen. It is proving to be an invaluable way of identifying the phone as yours to get it easily located and returned to you. Earth Mobile have gone though and made lists of the IMEI numbers for the stock there. Please check cupboards for the old box, look for the retailer receipt, check old bills, look for the contract documents, check old diaries, or failing all this please call your network provider and see if they have a record (there is a good success rate with this).

For your current phone punch *#06# into it and note down the IMEI number somewhere safe.

I hope this is helpful for now, more to follow.

- Rob

p99ull

Rob,

Thanks for the post.

I think I may be out of luck as I was one of the people awaiting payment for a very long time (i'm guessing they sold my phone on and got payment for this well before the 8th August announcement). I've kind of accepted the fact that there's no chance of me seeing the payment on this now (my lost item was a 3 month old iphone 3GS) - You learn by your mistakes :-(

However, you guys have my IEMI number so you never know.

Thanks again.

Paul

TradingStandardsRBWMonly

Dear all

I hope this general advice will be of help, particularly for those where Earth Mobile have checked their current held stock for your phone but it has not been located. From previous forum postings you will be aware that we have been trying to simply get people their phones back.

There may be some people reading this that don't know how it works, so apologies for those that do - your local authority provides a Trading Standards Service (TSS) for your protection and assistance, first contact call handling and level 1 advice is co-ordinated and delivered on a national basis by Consumer Direct (CD). Any more detailed or complicated matters, or matters requiring intervention/investigation are then passed back to TSS. As a Council service, funded partly by Council Tax in my area, I am therefore only able to advise and assist residents in my own area. So if you need any further advice as a result of reading this, contact your local TSS, Citizens Advice Bureau or CD for free advice, or a Solicitor (although there may be a charge). You can find your local TS in your local phonebook, by looking at your Council website. You can contact CD on 08454 04 05 06.

On the basis that there must be some residents in my own area affected by this, and as a favour to others I am posting here some advice for the benefit of all, but will not be able to deal with individual queries.

As I see it, while Earth Mobile (EM) are still trading, they must meet their contractual obligations and pay people for phones sent in. This is why we have asked them to with either pay people, or where that is not possible to compensate them (by sending the phone back). This has been the best possible outcome from a bad situation. It is still not ideal because many have been without phones for a long time now, and may have suffered additional expenses where they were reliant on the payment coming through from Earth Mobile.

While EM are still trading you have the right to sue them in a County Court (Small Claims Track) for compensation. In most cases the amount of your claim would equal the amount of money you were expecting to be paid for your phone (assuming it was an accurate/realistic market price quoted), although there may be some additional expenses on top (postage etc.) The process is designed to be as simple and accessible as possible, will not subject you to huge legal fees, you do not need a Solicitor, and you may be able to do the whole claim online (see the Courts Service website for details). One reason I have not advised everybody to make a County Court claim (resulting in a CCJ), is that it would distract the repatriation effort by tying up the one remaining EM person (and may lead the company prematurely going into administration). Another reason is that having a CCJ against a Limited company is the not necessarily the end, if the company is not minded to pay it you have to go back to Court for a means of enforcing the judgement. Bear in mind that EM is a limited company, therefore their total liability is limited to the amount of money in the company - there is no pot of gold and private possessions owned by any agents for the company are not in the mix.

Administration, in simple terms, happens at the point when a company realises it owes money to more people that it has available to pay them. It involves administrators coming in to take over the running of the business, being paid for out of any assets, and totalling up the debts, comparing that against the assets and paying what it can to whom it can. They will try to sell the business as a going concern firstly, and failing that to achieve the best price for any assets available for distribution to creditors.

Anyone that has sent a mobile phone to EM will be an unsecured creditor at the point they go into administration (if they were to).

There is an order in which creditors get paid, I am not expert enough in the detail of it, but as I understand it unsecured creditors (customers) are not top of the list. Perhaps there is a forum member that knows more about the process of administration that can contribute on this.

EM have maintained that they would like to stay trading, in fact they do have some stock which is already paid for, and despite a slight dent on their goodwill are already in the market and in a good position to conceivably carry on trading. It is down to them (as a commercial decision) and their accountants (as a legal decision) to make the call.

Without being able to sneak a peek into the future, it is anyones guess as to how much you would get back for your £130 iphone if EM went into administration, but it would not be much. Some people might be willing to settle and accept a token amount of compensation now, but then how would you feel if EM managed to go on trading when you had settled for so little. I am fast concluding it is not going to be easy for us to work out a compensation plan with EM, it may be too risky or too far outside of a Trading Standards remit. Maybe we should leave it to the experts: the accountants and administrators to sort out.

So if your phone is not found and sent back to you, I can only see 2 legal options, sue or push for the company to go into administration. Neither of which are ideal. If anyone can see scope for a negotiated middle way, or any other viable options then please post them up.

In the meanwhile we are still going through the reported complaints, still hunting out phones, and therefore still compiling a list of those that will require compensating one way or another later on.

Despite not good news, I hope this has been helpful.

- Rob

Drayven

Hi Rob,

As Earth Mobile wish to continue trading, surely they have to pay us what we are owed?

Also, do they not have records of which phones they have already sold?

Thanks for your help, and sorry if these are obvious questions

Mark

laticsforlife

Yes, I agree, if they are wishing to continue to trade they cannot avoid paying those creditors from the first profits they make.

If a Company fails to pay a debt of over £75 for more than two weeks then technically they are trading insolvent, which is contrary to Company Law.

Any single (certainly iPhone owner) creditor could ask for the Company to be wound up, and I can see no reason why the Court would not grant this.

So if they do intend to trade they must pay us, or face multiple threats from the Courts, and be back at square one.

Eildor

EM are still trading... how can I contact EM to ask them for my money then?

TradingStandardsRBWMonly

Drayven wrote: »

Hi Rob,

As Earth Mobile wish to continue trading, surely they have to pay us what we are owed?

Also, do they not have records of which phones they have already sold?

Thanks for your help, and sorry if these are obvious questions

Mark

Hi Mark

These are fairly sensible and straightforward questions, no need to apologise. Indeed, as EM are still trading, legally they must pay customers what is owed, failure to pay is breach of contract. Breach of contract is normally remedied by County Courts by aiming for restitution (putting the customer back in the position they were first of all before the contract started) - which is why I see returning the phones as a form of restitution which should satisfy most claims, as it effectively puts you back in the same position as you were before you sent the phone off. Of course that is over simplified because the value of the phone may have changed, and there are postage costs and/or other expenses incurred in some cases, however it seems a sensible starting point.

The processes were not very sophisticated, so record keeping simply was not good enough. The business model had some scope for improvement. Once payment had been agreed, phones were removed from any identifying packaging and stored awaiting recycling/export unlabelled, so looking at any individual handset there was no traceability. Maybe there was no need to label phones which were ready to go straight out, but I would have advised use of stickers on the handsets (or container bags), given them each a reference number, and maintained paper as well as computer records, with backups, to keep traceability maintained, as well as allowing efficient stock movement mapping. It looks like it started as a fairly simple busines which then grew beyond a manageable level, without the documentation/procedures/processes to underpin the management system.