Help please!...Our business has been conned!

icecreamcastle · 10 July 2017 at 8:06PM

Hello,

Thank you in advance for your time and any help - hopefully, this is the correct forum to post in.

We hired a distribution company to distribute our publication for the last 2 months. We have since discovered, they have not delivered any of them! We have ample of evidence in both the failure to do the work and the work they agreed to undertake.

Thankfully, we paid via PayPal and PayPal have been extremely helpful and it looks extremely promising we will receive the distribution costs back.

However, we are still around £8000 out of pocket due to our print costs (we haven't received our publications back) and we have also lost a lot of custom due to the failure to deliver.

My questions are:

1. Are our missing publications now classed as stolen items? They went straight from our printers to the distributor. We paid for and own the publication. In law, is this theft?

2. If yes, do we report this to the police or somebody else?

3. What is the best course of action to take or who do we contact in regards to attempting to recoup our print expenses and loss of earnings?

Thank you once again for your time and help. I've tried to keep this first post as brief as possible but can fill in more details if required.

DoaM · 10 July 2017 at 8:20PM

With respect, you're asking on a Consumer Rights board ... your questions have nothing to do with consumer rights as yours was a B2B relationship.

AndyMc..... · 10 July 2017 at 8:21PM

Well you aren't a consumer so it's not the right board.

Get some legal advice and take them to court.

Rainbowgirl84 · 10 July 2017 at 8:23PM

This is a Consumer rights board. What you are describing sounds like a business to business transaction. What does your contract with the distributor say?

eddddy · 10 July 2017 at 8:25PM

Presumably you had a contract with them saying that they would distribute your publication.

So they are in breach of contract, and you can claim your consequential losses from them. (The cost of the print run and the money you paid them should be fairly straightforward, loss of profits might be a challenge.)

But even if you win in court, if they have no money or assets, there's no way of getting any money from them.

Alternatively, if they are refusing to return your property, I guess you could argue that's theft. (Have you asked them? Are they refusing?)

Or if they took your money without ever intending to do the distribution, that would be fraud. But that's quite hard to prove.

Unless the sums involved are very large, I suspect that the police won't be too keen to get involved.

icecreamcastle · 10 July 2017 at 8:25PM

Many thanks all. I now realise I've posted in the wrong forum. I've just posted in the small business forum. I'm just trying to work out how to delete the post from here. Sorry for posting in the wrong forum and thank you.

wealdroam · 10 July 2017 at 8:37PM

icecreamcastle wrote: »

Many thanks all. I now realise I've posted in the wrong forum. I've just posted in the small business forum. I'm just trying to work out how to delete the post from here. Sorry for posting in the wrong forum and thank you.

Cick the

button underneath your original post and explain that you would like the thread deleted because you have posted elsewhere.

MrJones1 · 10 July 2017 at 8:42PM

You had a contract with a distribution company to distribute your publications. But it has later turned out that they have breached the contract by not delivering the publications. You have the evidence to prove this.

There is a legal route that you can take and you seem to have the upper hand with the evidence you have. You will at least be able to get the money you paid them for the distribution and the print cost. Loss of profit is also something you could claim.

What you need to do now is to get in touch with a solicitor. Sometimes it's enough with them sending letters to the distribution company. Sometimes the case will have to go to court. Since this case is about several thousands of pounds, I cannot see any reason why you shouldn't take this case further.

hollydays · 10 July 2017 at 10:01PM

Whilst it may not be a consumer issue, it still could possibly be fraud and do you have any other information on them because if you do you could post their details on the web if you wished at some point , to see if others have had similar issues. ( you can pm me if you'd rather and I'll do some searching)
Yes you should report this to the police but without knowing more details no one could say if it's a criminal defence as this depends on intent.
Do they offer advertising publications too ?

Rainbowgirl84 · 10 July 2017 at 10:47PM

...and hopefully the difference between criminal defence and criminal offence.

Help please!...Our business has been conned!

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free