Company trying to blackmail our business

dinkygirl

have you contacted the trading standards office local to the company? You may not be the only people who are suffering because of them.

Micky_d

Hi,

I have come across this in the past with a friend of mine who had an issues with a web advertising business. They told him that if he didn't pay the remainder of his contract, even though they had not delivered what they said they would, they would terminate his contract and pursue him for the remaining balance.

While I don't know what industry you are in, I would find out if you have any leading bodies for your industry and contact them. We did this and they offered free advice and gave us some legal definitions to throw at this company. I was also a member of the FSB Federation of small businesses which cost £200 for a year but it turned out to be money well spent. They offer free legal advice for members and will represent you in a legally if needed. It may be worth you joining them and see if they will represent you.

We sent letter after letter and in the end we threatened to set the FSB on them and we also told them that we would be writing several articles for the press and gave them the right to reply. In the end, after a few legal letters they agreed to terminate the agreement with no further costs.

In the meantime, as you said that your agreement would terminate naturally in January, could you not look now for similar companies to take you on now, businesses are crying out for new customers at present. If you can get a similar company to start getting you business, it would give you some money coming in to fight this company legally.

One final point, even if you can afford to take this company to court and win, there is no guarantee that you will get any money back, we won but are still waiting for our award.

Good luck