Company trying to blackmail our business

strummergirl

Hi there

Am wondering if anyone can help

My husband has a contract with a large national company for services. A few months ago they changed the way they work and the return from advertising with them dropped by about 80%. My husband complained they had breached the contract by not advertising on all the sites he was told when he signed the contract. This went on for months.

They are now demanding that we pay them 4k to buy out the remainder of the contract or they will turn off one of the other advertisers he uses (which they own) We cannot afford to do this and have said the contract will have to continue but they will not accept this! The contract has until January to run but they are trying to get rid of us and make money at the same time. Can they force us out of the contract? They are the ones that have breached. There are small arrears as we haven't paid since the problems started but we can discharge those if needs be.

If we lose the other site this will literally kill the company on the spot as there will be no return for his clients and they will all cancel. It is a limited company.

We can't afford to lose the other site but we also cant afford to pay them 4k for nothing, it feels like blackmail and we are being held to ransom! We literally don't know what to do, if we lose his business we will lose everything.

Thank you for reading

gb12345

strummergirl wrote: »

Hi there

Am wondering if anyone can help

My husband has a contract with a large national company for services. A few months ago they changed the way they work and the return from advertising with them dropped by about 80%. My husband complained they had breached the contract by not advertising on all the sites he was told when he signed the contract. This went on for months.

They are now demanding that we pay them 4k to buy out the remainder of the contract or they will turn off one of the other advertisers he uses (which they own) We cannot afford to do this and have said the contract will have to continue but they will not accept this! The contract has until January to run but they are trying to get rid of us and make money at the same time. Can they force us out of the contract? They are the ones that have breached. There are small arrears as we haven't paid since the problems started but we can discharge those if needs be.

If we lose the other site this will literally kill the company on the spot as there will be no return for his clients and they will all cancel. It is a limited company.

We can't afford to lose the other site but we also cant afford to pay them 4k for nothing, it feels like blackmail and we are being held to ransom! We literally don't know what to do, if we lose his business we will lose everything.

Thank you for reading

To be honest, you are unlikely to get any real advice on here as what they can do would depend on the contract that he has with them.

You would be better off finding a solicitor who will offer a half hour free session and get them to take a look at the contract.

strummergirl

Thank you. We have and they wrote to them about the breaches as we lost a few clients but we don't have any money for more legal action and they are saying they will cut off the other site imminently. They will not answer any questions we have or negotiate

gb12345

If a solicitor has decided that they have breached the contract and written to them and they've ignored this then there really is nothing else you can do that doesn't involve paying for more legal advice.

Your only other options appear to be to pay them the money or cut your losses and close the company (assuming your husband didn't give nay form of personal guarantee for the contract).

strummergirl

Thank you. I was hoping there may be something I hadn't thought of.

Resolving it legally would take a long time anyway and If they cut the other site the damage would be done so it looks like we're stuck between a rock and hard place. So unfair!

mandi

Have a look on this site strummergirl


http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/consumer_e/consumer_problems_with_business_to_business_services_e/consumer_protection_for_businesses.htm

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/consumer_e/consumer_protection_for_the_consumer_e/consumer_contracts_e/unfair_terms_in_consumer_contracts.htm

If you can't get any info from the link , maybe a call to them will point you in the right direction.

Good Luck

Mistral001

Looks like you will have to start thinking about getting another firm to do what this firm is doing at the minute.

If you refuse to pay and get cut off then you will be in a position to take them to court for breach of contract or get an injunction to have the service restored. That is assuming that your solicitor has expertise in this type of contract and has got it right that there will be a breach of contract.

In saying that if it transpires that you win your battle against this firm, will you keep using them?

paddyrg

I'm a bit unclear at the moment, are these affiliate landing sites or something like that? Who owns the page up? Who owns the domains? Could there be another way out of this assuming they're going to starve you and threaten? Perhaps shift the domain to a new registrar and get new hosts for the sites, or look to a new always network?

teabelly

If they're behaving like this toward you then they'll be doing it to others. I'd start publicising their actions. Negative publicity is far more powerful than any lawyer and is often free.

If they're no longer driving the business to you then you need to find alternative marketing methods. Then offer these methods to other disgruntled customers of theirs and put them out of business instead. Revenge will be very sweet

Brassedoff

teabelly wrote: »

. Revenge will be very sweet

And expensive!

OP, I suspect your husband was subscribed to one of the sites that gave free quotes etc and sold you leads for a fee, plus min spend per month?

As a solution, could your Husband get some temp work from one of the nationals until you can re-work your business model?

Catherine_Johnson_2

I don't think anyone can answer this as no-one but you knows what the 'services' that the company provide are, or what was in your agreement with them.