Company trading after liquidation

choodalls

In December 2014 I made an online order from fixingsandfastenings in the UK (I had previously made lots of orders without issue). The order was never fulfilled and emails to their customer help addresses failed to get a response. In January 2015 they took down their website.
I had paid with Debitcard using their SagePay portal and after contacting SagePay all I got was sympathy but apparently unlike Paypal they have no effective powers or remit to compensate.
Today I got an email proclaiming their new eCommerce website which is at the same address and looks identical. So I visited it and my customer account is still there and live from the old website. Including order details amongst which is my unfulfilled order.
I used their "Contact Us" section and asked them if they would now refund me or fulfill my long lost order. I got this reply from 'Chris' [from the same email address as Chris Cartwright had used in dealings with me before]:

"Hi David,

Sorry to hear about your issues, CTF Ltd unfortunately closed in January, we have bought the site name, product database and consumer data base from the administrators
and started trading this month, we don't have any previous order details that we can look up sorry.

I can pass your details on to the Liquidators if you wish, however we were not allowed to trade using F&F until they had completed the closure of the Old Company.

If you let us know what goods you use we can see if there is anything we can do to help ongoing, but with regards to dealing with CTF Ltd unfortunately there is not a lot
we can do to assist you.

We do hope this goes some way to restore faith in this new venture.

Thanks

Fixings And Fastenings Ltd"

I was not happy with that reply and responded with a copy of the pdf of my order (from their own relaunched website) and with this as my complaint:

Hi Chris,
Well my details of unfulfilled orders are still in the “my Account” area and still ironically marked as ‘shipping’. So if you should choose to do the right thing and fulfill the order then maybe you will gain a bit of goodwill. I have attached the order details for your perusal.
And I assume you are very likely the same Chris (Cartwright) who used to write to me from this very same email address, so I feel I am owed a better explanation than you went into liquidation and then re-appeared 10 months later.
Hoping for a more positive outcome from this request.
David.

My question to you guys is what should I do next as the communication with then has now gone dead???? Are they liable for my unfulfilled order? I would have thought the answer would be yes if they are using my customer details and still have a customer area that I can log in to {but you may know better!!].

Please help with next step....

unholyangel

If you'd written back at the start of the year, theres a chance you could have gotten a refund via chargeback.

Now, your only option really is small claims court.


As for the company status....were they ever listed on companies house as in liquidation/dissolved?

There doesn't seem to be anything along those lines listed on companies house for them just now. Although they did change their name in aug 2015 from passive build ltd to fixings & fastenings ltd.

Listed as a director is Christopher Cartwright who was appointed as a director on 9th sep 2015.

Mr Cartwright as also director of cartwright timber fixings ltd (which I assume is the CTF ltd referred to in your post) which is in liquidation and their accounts are overdue.

It appears as if the fixings & fastenings was only ever a trading name of cartwright timber fixings ltd.

wealdroam

choodalls wrote: »

In December 2014 I made an online order from fixingsandfastenings in the UK (I had previously made lots of orders without issue). The order was never fulfilled and emails to their customer help addresses failed to get a response. In January 2015 they took down their website.
I had paid with Debitcard using their SagePay portal and after contacting SagePay all I got was sympathy but apparently unlike Paypal they have no effective powers or remit to compensate.
Today I got an email proclaiming their new eCommerce website which is at the same address and looks identical. So I visited it and my customer account is still there and live from the old website. Including order details amongst which is my unfulfilled order.
I used their "Contact Us" section and asked them if they would now refund me or fulfill my long lost order. I got this reply from 'Chris' [from the same email address as Chris Cartwright had used in dealings with me before]:


I was not happy with that reply and responded with a copy of the pdf of my order (from their own relaunched website) and with this as my complaint:



My question to you guys is what should I do next as the communication with then has now gone dead???? Are they liable for my unfulfilled order? I would have thought the answer would be yes if they are using my customer details and still have a customer area that I can log in to {but you may know better!!].

Please help with next step....

What you should be doing, and should've done instead of contacting Sagepay, is talking to your card issuer about a chargeback.

You might like to read MSE's Chargeback article before doing that, because unfortunately there is generally a 120 day time limit for making claims.

Although you are past the time limit, it would certainly be worth a phone call to you bank to see if they can help.

It is unlikely that the new company is responsible for your unfulfilled order.
Perhaps MSE's Administration Help document will explain why that might be.

agrinnall

Does your customer account include personal details? If so I would suspect that they are in breach of the Data Protection Act by retaining them as you never gave permission to the current company for their use.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/

arcon5

But he may have given permission to the previous company!

MothballsWallet

arcon5 wrote: »

But he may have given permission to the previous company!

But may not always transfer over though.

arcon5

MothballsWallet wrote: »

But may not always transfer over though.

Huh?
Op either gave permission or she didn't.
If op gave permission for the previous company to sell on their details then they've done just that. And the receiving company have bought details lawfully provided.

Tigsteroonie

But there is no document lodged at Companies House from the liquidators advising that they have authorised the sale of the trading name / business / client list to this new company.

So there may well be a breach of the DPA in the new company having client details from the old company, if there has been no formal documented transfer of that customer database.

redmalc

The DTI and Insolvency service are very hot on this type of thing at the moment.
It looks like he as let the dust settle and started his new venture without purchasing the Intangible assets from the Liquidators.
I would recommend you make a complaint to the Liquidator advising there is a Breach in the Insolvency act ref law 216

choodalls

Thanks for the replies.

It was only £38 and, until the email arrived today announcing their 'new' website, I had mentally come to terms with the fact that I had been ripped off, but the re-emergence of quite obviously the same people running the same named website re-opened old wounds.

Even in January when the company had obviously gone into trouble and I was chasing my order I noted that they were still actually accepting orders and presumably still taking customer monies with no intention of fulfilling and this (as an honest sole trader myself) simply annoys me. But the more annoying thing is that they are back again........and denying any connection to their identically named previous enterprise.

bris

redmalc wrote: »

The DTI and Insolvency service are very hot on this type of thing at the moment.
It looks like he as let the dust settle and started his new venture without purchasing the Intangible assets from the Liquidators.
I would recommend you make a complaint to the Liquidator advising there is a Breach in the Insolvency act ref law 216

Nonsense, the liquidator has to get as much from the companies assets as possible. The first thing they do is try and sell as a going concern then work their way down to liquidation. In liquidation everything is sold including the trading name if anyone wants to buy it. There is nothing wrong here, the intangible assets are disposed off by the liquidator, no one is required to buy them just because they bought the trading name.