CLEAR BUSINESS REVIEWS - DON'T REFLECT MY EXPERIENCE AND RESEARCH

skintbuthonest · 11 November 2020 at 12:10PM

Hi Everyone, I'll try to keep this story as short as possible. I run a tiny business in Scotland, and 4 years ago I decided to lease a small office (about the size of a double bedroom) so I could get away from the house and all the noise that comes with it! Within a year I was sent a letter by "Clear Business" stating that my business had to pay for waste water (water run-off basically). I did some research and it appeared a genuine charge my business was liable for. It was a bit of a surprise, but never-the-less I owed the money. So, I contacted Clear Business (who are owned by Verastar Ltd) and made a payment by credit card to cover what I owed, plus a balance on account. Periodically I would call them and make further payments on account to make sure the bills were always covered; I don't like to be in debt. Last year I had no option but to leave my lovely office (couldn't afford it anymore), so I called Clear Business Water to close the waste water account. Closing the account wasn't a problem, but there was a considerable balance on the account, and I have been chasing a refund ever since. I am now 12 months down the line and still I don't have my money. Firstly they requested a bank statement to prove the identity of my business, so I sent it to them. After this they said that actually they needed a credit card statement proving that I had being paying them from this source, so I sent this to them also. But despite these efforts they are making it impossible to return my money to me. Apparently they can't send a BACS payment to my business account because I paid by credit card, but they can't return the money to my credit card because their system doesn't do credit card refunds. To solve this they said they sent a cheque - it didn't arrive.
This is incredibly unfair, poor treatment. Does anyone else have any experience with this company?? Will I ever get my money back??

skintbuthonest · 11 November 2020 at 12:21PM

Just as an addendum to the above, I have done some research on Clear Business Water. If you look at their Trustpilot reviews they appear to have quite a high rating, but on digging deeper there appears to be a significant number of customers who are very unhappy. Clear Business is owned by Verastar Ltd. The Google reviews for Verastar Ltd don't look healthy at all. Another connected company is "Unicom", where previous customers have set up their own website called "Unicom Complaints ", and they seem very unhappy about how they have been treated in the past. Verastar Ltd have a number of different trading names/styles including Verastar Ltd, Unicom, Kinex, Woav, Clear Business and Universal Debt Collection. Can anyone with experience of any of these businesses let me know if I have any chance of getting my money back? I really need it back - coronavirus has hit me hard. Please help.