Earth Mobile Ceased Trading can anyone help

laticsforlife

I hear what is being said about them not being able to afford to pay 100% of the contracted sum, but I've not been offered any % at all, and as far as I am concerned I could force them into liquidation relatively easily, so why don't they make efforts to contact their customers and make some offer, so we the customer can consider our options.

TradingStandardsRBWMonly

Eildor wrote: »

Can you advise me on what to write in the letter? Is there a template or something perhaps? Are you able to assist me with this or should I send another e-mail to CD?

Thank you for your help, much appreciated.

Eildor

Hi - Yes strictly speaking I should point you to your local Trading Standards for advice (who probably utilise Consumer Direct for first tier contact and civil law advice). Citizens Advice is an alternative for Small Claims advice and associated pre-action protocol. However, to try and save some going round the houses I will just answer your query because it may apply equally to my local Council Tax payers...

There is nothing already worded for these specific circumstances, but there are some general template letters here which you may find a useful starting point. They will need a little tweaking:
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/after_you_buy/making-complaint/template-letters/

A simple, polite and straightforward letter should do the trick - it does not have to be too 'legal' for the small claims track, just get to the point - what has happened and when; identify and distinguish your contract (all your details, include EM reference no, etc.); state what outcome you would like to achieve; and to save it dragging on open ended, give a time limit (for payment to x account, or for a response). Keep a copy, send it recorded. A series of three letters before action is the norm. If there is no response, or an unsatisfactory response to the first letter, you send a straightforward reminder (enclosing the original), and the final letter is to put on notice as a final letter before action. Hope this helps.

Kind regards
- Rob

TradingStandardsRBWMonly

Earth Mobile were invited to make a joint public statement, but have declined to do so. Nevertheless we felt it important to try and provide some further information to the previous customers of Earth Mobile Limited that still find themselves without their money or their phone.

As you will be aware, RBWM Trading Standards have been working with Earth Mobile to get handsets identified and sent back to consumers and in the region of 500 have been returned whilst that effort was ongoing. This process has now stopped for two reasons: due to the main creditor taking legal action which has resulted in remaining stock being set aside; and Earth Mobile have stopped looking at the stock while they wait to see what happens with it. It is likely now that bailiffs will take remaining assets and the company will go into liquidation. Details of the administrators will be available from www.companieshouse.gov.uk as soon as one has been appointed.

The accountants are in discussions with Earth Mobile Ltd to make some key decisions, but we have asked them to look at whether it should be wound up.

If you have lost out, realistically there are limited prospects of successfully recovering the money you were owed. Until the company appoints administrators, you can sue the limited company. Once it is in administration you can lodge a claim as an 'unsecured creditor' along with the others that have similarly lost out. Neither of these approaches are perfect, or will get you all your money back.

I have tried to identify some of the legal consequences and draw up a fact sheet for those people minded to take some form of legal action. If you are looking to take it further please email for a copy: [EMAIL="trading.standards@rbwm.gov.uk"]trading.standards@rbwm.gov.uk[/EMAIL]

I hope this has been helpful, and am sorry for those that, despite our best efforts, have lost money from this company going down.

Kind regards
Rob

Eildor

How can assets which did not belong to EM in the first place be seized? This is theft, the phones should be returned to their rightful owners.

Silk

Eildor wrote: »

How can assets which did not belong to EM in the first place be seized? This is theft, the phones should be returned to their rightful owners.

Hi Eildor,
Its already been explained earlier in the thread when transfer of title to the goods occurs so no need to explain again.

I imagine the "Main Creditor" that Rob mentions above is likely to be the Vatman in which case he usualy gets a court order and sends the bailiffs in and if already started will probably happen before the company is wound up.

IMO the option that you now have is to issue proceedings against Russel Tilbury on a personal level.
The grounds would be unfair and illegal disposal of assets during the winding up procedure.

Simple Example:
Client A and Client B are both owed the value of the phones they sent in (say £100 ea.)
Russel sends Client A his phone back getting rid of the debt.
Client B receives nothing and all the assets have now gone.

What should have happened is "Both" Clients should have had their phones returned and if this was not possible then the assets should have been sold to the highest bidder and each client received 50% of the residue.

Fortunately for you this disposal occured after he had publicly declared that he had ceased trading ......had he disposed of them beforehand you would only be able to claim against the company

Eildor

Taken from TS fact sheet document:

We advise to see whether the costs of getting legal advice, or taking
any further legal action, can be shared amongst a group of like-minded
individuals. A ‘class action’ would spread the cost and reduce the risk, so we
would recommend looking into that. The MSE forum or a similar mechanism
could be useful.

Guys_Dad

Silk wrote: »

IMO the option that you now have is to issue proceedings against Russel Tilbury on a personal level.
The grounds would be unfair and illegal disposal of assets during the winding up procedure.

Simple Example:
Client A and Client B are both owed the value of the phones they sent in (say £100 ea.)
Russel sends Client A his phone back getting rid of the debt.
Client B receives nothing and all the assets have now gone.

What should have happened is "Both" Clients should have had their phones returned and if this was not possible then the assets should have been sold to the highest bidder and each client received 50% of the residue.

Fortunately for you this disposal occured after he had publicly declared that he had ceased trading ......had he disposed of them beforehand you would only be able to claim against the company

Slight problem with that, possibly.

If you look at the Trading Standards Officer's post, he writes.

"As you will be aware, RBWM Trading Standards have been working with Earth Mobile to get handsets identified and sent back to consumers and in the region of 500 have been returned whilst that effort was ongoing. This process has now stopped for two reasons: due to the main creditor taking legal action which has resulted in remaining stock being set aside; and Earth Mobile have stopped looking at the stock while they wait to see what happens with it. It is likely now that bailiffs will take remaining assets and the company will go into liquidation."

If you take the first of the two reasons, then Russell can reasonably claim that he was acting alongside one official body and was returning assets in a structured way when a 2nd government body (VAT or Inland Revenue) stepped in and stopped the process. By Rob's own admission, the Trading Standards were complicit in the decision to work through sending back the mobiles until the action by the major creditor to set aside the stock.

Eildor

I'm just going to go down the County Court route since he hasn't responded to my letter sent via recorded delivery, e-mails, etc. Should get much more off him than originally agreed that way too, so can't complain ;> I can claim an additional 22p per day that he had been in breach of contract. He hasn't shown willingness to solve this issue at all, he may have been returning some phones -- but what about those phones that weren't found or had already been sold? I personally haven't had any correspondence from him whatsoever. Even before EM creased trading, they had not been paying up in the agreed time frame, showing how dishonest the company is. All the complaints found on the internet and on this forum are a good indicator as to what kind of deception this company was involved in. Would like to see how exactly he plans on defending himself.

laticsforlife

Eildor wrote: »

I'm just going to go down the County Court route since he hasn't responded to my letter sent via recorded delivery, e-mails, etc. Should get much more off him than originally agreed that way too, so can't complain ;> I can claim an additional 22p per day that he had been in breach of contract. He hasn't shown willingness to solve this issue at all, he may have been returning some phones -- but what about those phones that weren't found or had already been sold? I personally haven't had any correspondence from him whatsoever. Even before EM creased trading, they had not been paying up in the agreed time frame, showing how dishonest the company is. All the complaints found on the internet and on this forum are a good indicator as to what kind of deception this company was involved in. Would like to see how exactly he plans on defending himself.

When you say 'him' I presume you mean the Director of EM, and not EM itself.

You were in contract with the Company so how can you 'sue' an individual?

And as for taking the Company, get in the Q - HMRC will be after the VAT and no doubt other suppliers will be after their monies, and as the premises were rented and they have little or no stock left to sell, then the prospect of you getting even 10p in the £1 are very slim. You cannot get money where there is none, even if you try to say that they were trading illegally (before the liquidation petition), it all matters not a jot now they are.

It's gone mate, let it go. Remember Kate Winslett on Titanic - your phone is Leo slipping under the ice.

Silk

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Slight problem with that, possibly.

If you look at the Trading Standards Officer's post, ..........

Hi GD,
Not realy, The problem is that TS's are only able to operate in an advisary capacity unless something unlawfull has happened as you probably know.
They will have advised the directors of the company all the legal obligations and options and offered what help they could but they will not be able to force them into doing one thing or another.

I'm sure that Russel would like to say that he has been working with TS's in his defence but it would not work as it would be like being caught for speeding whilst having a policeman as a passenger ..you would still get a fine.

The option of returning the phones was only ever going to work if there was enough funds in the pot to pay for those creditors whose phones had already been sold along with other creditors such as HMRC ....reading between the lines that was not the case.

As an Officer of the company Russel Tilbury had obligations to meet and a process to follow for winding the company up once it had ceased trading. It would seem he has not followed correct procedure nor has he met those obligations in which case IMO he has left himself open to litigation.

I'm making a guess but when Rob says "due to the main creditor taking legal action which has resulted in remaining stock being set aside" I would assume there may be a walking possession order against them in which case they would not be able to return them to the customer anyway.