Earth Mobile Ceased Trading can anyone help

gjchester

welshman1982 wrote: »

Fortunately I did take a note of the IMEI number of the mobile I sent in. I don't know how much of a difference this will make if any but I rang my mobile phone network, gave them the handset make, model, IMEI number and they blocked it immediately. Hopefully this will render the handset useless.

Not sure where you'd stand legally, if you send and it was recieved and accepted before the company went bust then it's not your handset it's theirs and you are a creditor.

Any assets go to the administrators who will then sell them and proceeeds go on to crditiors. If you've blacklisted a phone it will be classed as non working and you get even less (if anything).

I'm not saying your wrong, I'd probably do the same thing, but you could be on a sticky wicket legally as the phones not your any longer.

gjchester

Silk wrote: »

No he's left a long trail all over the net as Russell Tilbury for several years and been dealing with clients in person.

Fair enough It was jut the though of people assuming Dennis, who's may be a victim too, "needed lynching" made me wonder how many of the other details were right..

Pompeyfan

gjchester wrote: »

Not sure where you'd stand legally, if you send and it was recieved and accepted before the company went bust then it's not your handset it's theirs and you are a creditor.

Any assets go to the administrators who will then sell them and proceeeds go on to crditiors. If you've blacklisted a phone it will be classed as non working and you get even less (if anything).

I'm not saying your wrong, I'd probably do the same thing, but you could be on a sticky wicket legally as the phones not your any longer.

A lot of companies state when you buy from them that the goods aren't yours untill payment has been received in full, so wouldn't that apply here? no payment received so title of ownership hasn't changed yet.

gjchester

Pompeyfan wrote: »

A lot of companies state when you buy from them that the goods aren't yours untill payment has been received in full, so wouldn't that apply here? no payment received so title of ownership hasn't changed yet.

Probably right, but you made the contract to sell in a set state, you've then changed the state by getting it blocked. The fact goods hacve been supplied but not paid for means you could sue for the costs, but theres little point as the company is in administration. Where someone has had a phone accepted and been told they will be paid but not been paid yet is a different situation to some who sent the phone but it's not been approved for payment.

It's not clear what will happen, the administrators could just send all the phones back to the owners they can, or they may become assets and the senders unsecured creditors.

As I said leagally it's a strange situation.

LittleMoo22

£232 down 8 months pregnant & I doubt I'm ever going to see the money thats owed to me.
Now I'm going to have to find other means of making the £200 I needed to help me out with a few last minute baby things. I could of most certainly done without this spesh as my maternity pay is not magical.

This is typical.

If anyone finds a successful means of going about this then please let me know.

I have typed up a letter to watchdog, not that it will help but it gets my point across & it often helps to write things down, releases the tension of the situation.

I hope this guy realises how many lives he is messing with. Everyone is trying to make money in these tough times & some b*stard just uses us. How unfair

welshman1982

gjchester you are wrong. I've checked this all out. Legally, until a deal has been agreed or payment received I am still the registered owner of the handset. Earth Mobile gave me a quote. My mobile has been sent to them with a view to them buying it depending on what their so called engineering team decide the handset was worth. No contract was made, only a quote offered.

The only time that a contract would have been made or agreed on was after they have tested my mobile phone and offered me a price which I would then have to agree on. By me blocking the handset if they test it it won't work.

The quote was from a company who have ceased trading. On their website it stated that once the handset had been received they would test it, email me with a price and wait up to 10 days for my response. If I did not agree then they would return the handset to me. If I did not reply to the email they would assume I accepted the new quoted price and send me payment.

I've emailed them and had no reply. Tried phoning them but no joy. If a company goes into administration they are supposed to advertise on their website who the administrators are. All the website says is that they have ceased trading. This could mean they just decided to shut up shop and do a runner.

At no stage have I agreed to give them my mobile phone free of charge. If the administrators (if they have gone into administration) send the mobiles back to the owners then great. However, the administrators are unable to class the mobile phones Earth Mobile has in its possession as assets.

For something to be an asset you or the company have to own/be the owner of it. You also (usually) need to be able to prove you own the item eg receipts, credit card bills etc. To own something you have to pay for it. Earth Mobile have not paid me for my mobile phone thus making my mobile phone my property and my asset. By me blocking my mobile phone rendering it useless I have done nothing legally wrong. Any other mobiles that have been sent to Earth Mobile remain the property (assets) of the people who have sent them in (unless the mobile phone was owned by your mobile phone network) until a final price has been agreed and payment has received. They do not belong to Earth Mobile!

anniemal1

I cannot believe that this company has done this to thousands of people who are often desperate for the cash ( as I am !) When we sent our phones we were told it would take 15 days to process a cheque as they had a huge volume of phones to process( more like 15 days to steal our goods and do a runner)
By law they must name the Administration Company and they havent yet, I will bet my life they will come back under a different name.
Anyone any ideas how I can go about getting my property back???

:mad:

Silk

welshman1982 wrote: »

gjchester you are wrong. I've checked this all out. Legally, until a deal has been agreed or payment received I am still the registered owner of the handset.

I covered this back on the second page here

Silk wrote: »

As GD pointed out above, If you have agreed to a sale to them then the phone will be held by receivers if they are appointed and you will get a percentage of any funds available.( usualy very small though)

If anyone is in the position where the phone was sent for appraisal and you have not yet agreed a price to sell to them then you are able to request the phone back and the receivers have to return it to you (if they can find it of course)

welshman1982 wrote: »

The quote was from a company who have ceased trading. On their website it stated that once the handset had been received they would test it, email me with a price and wait up to 10 days for my response. If I did not agree then they would return the handset to me. If I did not reply to the email they would assume I accepted the new quoted price and send me payment.

If you do not reply to the email then it means you agree to the price .....which according to the T&C's means that the phone becomes the property of Earth Mobile even though they failed to pay.

It's all to do with Retention Of Title "ROT"

Generaly when goods are delivered as soon as they arrive they become the property of the company accepting them esp. where they are intended purchases.
There are exceptions to this ie. hired goods or goods for repair etc etc
An obvious exception as I pointed out are goods sent for appraisal and in limbo so to speak, if you have not agreed to the appraisal you will be able to claim them back. However the clause in the T&C's will complicate this and make it difficult.
If you have sent your own T&C's stating that Title does not transfer untill payment has been cleared then you would be home and dry but you would have to prove that.

I also pointed out that I would not be surprised if the paperwork/electronic communications were to dissapear as it's not unusual in cases like this

My advice would be to write to the aministrators as soon as they become known and give them as much detail regarding your phone and say as you haven't heard anything and tried to contact them that you'd like it back assuming it's there

Again as I advised earlier it might help to have "Dennis" on your side in this matter because Title will only transfer when they are passed over to the company, so any that have only been sent recently might still be available

Guys_Dad

You have to look at the logistics of this and get real. Not meant to be harsh, but read on.

From the number of posts, there are 000's of phones somewhere in a warehouse. In a company that has ceased trading, there may be some paperwork that links each individual phone to a seller.

Who is going to sit there, sifting through the piles of old phones and then tying them to the people who have sent them in? No employees of Earth Mobile, I presume, as the company will have paid off (if they are lucky) their staff. We don't know at this stage even if there will be an administrator appointed.

If Dennis hasn't been paid for a while, he might be the biggest single creditor and may put a lien on the goods or get a court order to sell those in his possession to pay off the debts owed to him. (Think Big Yell Box company or even dry-cleaners. In the latter case, they reserve the right to sell any clothes not claimed within 3 months. In the former, they can write to outstanding debtors giving them x weeks to pay otherwise they will sell the stock. )

If the goods are stored somewhere in Dennis' company - or elsewhere - do you think that he will simply let Joe Public root through all the phones till they find one with their IMEI number? I think not.

The owner of Earth Mobile - Russell - may or may not be a bad guy. On one hand, the bank may have called in his overdraft or a big buyer of his stock may have gone bust owing Earth Mobile £000's. Or he simply could not sell sufficient stock to pay off people who "sold" their phones to him.

Alternatively, he could be a total crook.

If I had a phone that was in their possession, I would ring Dennis politely, or, if I lived near there, visit , tell him the situation and then try to ascertain what is going on in case he has any information that could be helpful.

At this stage, Dennis should be looked upon as a friend and not a foe, until proved to the contrary - so Spike and the lynch mob, steer clear for the time being. The rope won't evaporate for a couple of weeks. He is probably on your side.

Laubirch

I've just spoken to Dennis from the storage facilites Earth Mobile used, they have not gone bust apparently they have just ceased trading as they could see the company going downhill. Apparently they have left the offices with all phones still inside, so there is hope yet!!! Windsor Self Storage are currently waiting for instructions from EarthMobile on where to forward all mail etc
Surely if they havent gone bust we can all get our phones back???:T