Whirli in administration

Louise1527

So I pay an annual subscription to a company (Whirli) who provide children's toys, you pay to have tokens and the tokens can be used to borrow, swap toys etc. 

you can also ask family and friends to buy presents via Whirli. Once your child has grown out of or finished with the toy you can send it to Whirli for credit off your next years subscription.
Many of my family did indeed buy toys through Whirli for Christmas and birthdays. Now my subscription is due soon so I recently sent all of these toys back to Whirli for credit on next years subscription, totalling £75.
since then Whirli have gone into administration. I can no longer renew my subscription with them. I have asked what happens with my credit and have been told I have lost it!
Is this the case? They were essentially buying the toys off me in place of credit off their subscription but now I get nothing? They won’t even send the toys back! 

I appreciate that have gone into administration but they still have the toys and will sell them off to cover their company debts, why should the debt to me be any different? Why as a customer do I lose out while businesses all get their pay outs???
Is there a way around this? My daughter has lost all her toys and I promised she would get them back in the next delivery of toys 😭

powerful_Rogue

Louise1527 said:

So I pay an annual subscription to a company (Whirli) who provide children's toys, you pay to have tokens and the tokens can be used to borrow, swap toys etc. 

you can also ask family and friends to buy presents via Whirli. Once your child has grown out of or finished with the toy you can send it to Whirli for credit off your next years subscription.
Many of my family did indeed buy toys through Whirli for Christmas and birthdays. Now my subscription is due soon so I recently sent all of these toys back to Whirli for credit on next years subscription, totalling £75.
since then Whirli have gone into administration. I can no longer renew my subscription with them. I have asked what happens with my credit and have been told I have lost it!
Is this the case? They were essentially buying the toys off me in place of credit off their subscription but now I get nothing? They won’t even send the toys back! 

I appreciate that have gone into administration but they still have the toys and will sell them off to cover their company debts, why should the debt to me be any different? Why as a customer do I lose out while businesses all get their pay outs???
Is there a way around this? My daughter has lost all her toys and I promised she would get them back in the next delivery of toys 😭

Your debt won't be any different. You'll have to lodge a claim with the administrators and if there is enough money in the pot, you should receive some back. However this could be pennies per pound - all depends where on the debtor list you are.

nyermen

My wife is in the same boat - she's part of a facebook group who are trying to coordinate and discuss what they should be doing, are you a member of it?

There's a bigger set of weird stuff going on with it all, some highlights include:
- Some people are saying they're unable to stop the subscriptions being taken (despite the company being in administration), and.  Website isn't allowing cancellations and as usual, banks are being unhelpful and claiming they can't stop the CPA's themselves.
- Erratic demands to either pay for the toys held on the basis of RRP valuations (despite toys being second/third/fourth hand in many cases), or to return them.  And larger toys that royal mail won't accept (and so DPD etc are required), they're saying must be returned at the cost of the subscriber (as the company has no money to pay for returns). Despite in many cases, people having paid for postal costs as part of their subscriptions.
- There was a rule that if you held a toy for x months (rather than returning it for another one) it became yours.  But people with, at least that amount left on their subscription are still told to return it at cost rather than just keep it.
- Requiring that all payments to the company to keep toys are made by bank transfer, not card payment etc.

There's a lot of question marks on rights of offset etc - many people have active subscriptions, but are being told they must return the toys at their own cost immediately, and then join the back of the debtor queue.  I'm guessing somewhere in the T&C is a line about not owning the toys, but does that make you liable for their return at your own cost?

So far my advice has been to cancel the subscriptions (hassle your bank to cancel the CPA if necessary), stick in any valid section 75 claim, and also try for a chargeback if debit card instead.