Farepak in administration: What to do? (Merged Thread)

hunnybugs1

sirboz wrote:

Without reading paes & pages , has anyone estimated the total value they have legged it with ?

I am sure it said somewhere that it is about £60 million!!! I know they had about 35,000 agents (me included). Between me and my customers we had £6000.

oops_a_daisy

looby75 wrote:

A friend of the family has been an agent for Farepak for years and has built up quite a large number of customers, she had orders for around £15000 many of which were from people she worked with and their families.

She has just been notified by one of her work mates that they intend to take HER to small claims court to get the money they paid to her as Farepaks agent back. Can they do this? She paid all money she was supposed to directly to Farepak and recently paid one of the final payments of over £5000 to them. Her work mates argument is that he had a contract with her not Farepak so it's her responsibility to make sure he either gets a refund or the items he has paid for.

Our friend has lost not only her own money but the commission she should have earned as well, so it's not as though she's sitting pretty in all this.

Although I feel sorry for all of those who have lost money and farepak have turned out to be complete cowboys I think it is even worse to blame the agent for this. This so called work 'mate' is just as bad as the directors of Farepak if they continue with this action. How low - I am in complete disbelief at this. Sorry that I can not offer any advice other than for your friend to contact the citizens advice bureau if he carries on with it.

violetb_2

I understand the site itself cannot help to compensate for the misery caused by this and was pleased to see Martin's note at the start of this thread. However, this site, by it's very nature of trying to help those in need, probably has an awful lot of members who are affected by this.

Surely if a campaign can be set up like the one asking for Carol Vorderman to stop doing ads, a petition or member's vote on this issue could be managed - if only so those of us who don't want to be part of the 'told you so minority' can show our support. This was no 'fly by night set up yesterday' company. If it had been, so many people now would not be so affected.

This was just a way some people tried to budget for a special time of the year. How is it that different from those with a bit more dosh losing out on endowments expected to pay off their mortgage?

oops_a_daisy

hunnybugs1 wrote:

By the way, it mentions on an earlier posting that it may be possible to claim back payments made by debit card. Does anyone know if this is right?

if you read the first post on this thread by Martin I think you will find that it is only c/cards that you may be able to claim off.

Open_Wallet_Surgery

Even better idea ....

What about asking all MP's to donate a days pay to a fund to help buy stuff for the kids of parents who've lost everything
Surely if you can prize them away from the Commons bar ....
And I'm sure New Labour and Mr Bliar (intentional SP) could spin something really good out of this, as its mostly the working classes that have lost out ...

oops_a_daisy

I have just found out tonight that although my Mum, Dad and I are alright as we saved with Park, my 88 year old Nana and Aunt were not so lucky. My Nana saves up for £100 M & S vouchers and then splits them at christmas between the grandchildren and great grandchild. To be honest Im not bothered that we wont get anything from her this year - there are so many more a lot worse off. But it really makes me mad that Farepak have basically robbed my Nan of £100 :mad:

Open_Wallet_Surgery

[QBut it really makes me mad that Farepak have basically robbed my Nan of £100 :mad:[/QUOTE]


Wonder if the Govt, or the DTi will investigate, after all sounds like a large case of gross mismanagement.....

looby75

oops_a_daisy wrote:

Although I feel sorry for all of those who have lost money and farepak have turned out to be complete cowboys I think it is even worse to blame the agent for this. This so called work 'mate' is just as bad as the directors of Farepak if they continue with this action. How low - I am in complete disbelief at this. Sorry that I can not offer any advice other than for your friend to contact the citizens advice bureau if he carries on with it.

Thanks to everyone who replied about our friends situation. She was distraught when she found out what had happened and said that Monday was one of the hardest days of her life, having to tell so many people that Christmas was ruined for them. Most were ok, upset and angry at Farepak of course but told her that they knew it wasn't her fault, some shouted at her but apologised later, but this one individual is a really nasty piece of work. He has taken a neighbour to court over damage the neighbours kids are supposed to have done to his car 4 times now (but only won once) so he's no stranger to filing in all the forms etc, so it's very likely he will push this as far as he can. She worried that if everyone else in work sees what he's doing they will all try too and she will end up in court for months on end trying to fight it. It's stress she could do without right now, her sons girlfriend is pregnant and having a very rough time of things she's been in and out of hospital and isn't out of the woods yet. All this couldn't have come at a worse time for her. I'll pass on the info given here in the hope it may help her worry a little bit less.

I used to get vouchers from her, I only stopped last year as I discovered I could get most things cheaper online than in the shops and obviously you can't use vouchers online. If I hadn't stopped I would have been £500 down now so my heart goes out to anyone who lost money.

pattiemay

I feel sick, my sister is not well and has been an agent for this scumbag firm and is feeling responsible for taking our money then losing it even though we tell her its not her fault. God knows what we'll do for Christmas now, these vouchers were going to be my lifeline with having 6 grandkids. I hope these directors rot in hell for the misery the've caused for thousands of people, I hope they choke on their festive feast (which they will be having without a thought for those that can't)

michjoe

Is there anyone out there who works for farepak who has any comments on the situation, I don't mean the management I mean warehouse staff etc. Was there any indication that anything bad was going on when no stock was coming into the warehouse, as I presume it would come into the warehouse before now.