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DJM - Statement of Affairs released


pheaton
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7 hours ago, dpgibbons said:

 

The short answer appears to be No, as crowdfunding has no legal meaning in the UK.  If the substance of the deal is that an individual is buying a product from a supplier, then normal consumer protections will apply. DJM's disclaimers to the contrary would likely have failed if they had been tested in court.  

 

We will now find out, for real, what the legal position actually is

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I don't think we will find out the full story of this sorry saga. If the crowd funding creditors get their money back from credit card companies then they will move on and the CC company losses will be built into their cost model. The other creditors will probably look at the cost of legal action and the probability of receiving anything even if they win in court and will likely write it off (unless they are one of those who will do it to make a point). The liquidator will do their job but with £4800 in the pot plus whatever they might get for some of the assets which DJ has put down as having no value there is a limit to how deeply they will go. Unless DJM have done something which draws the attention of the authorities then I think this story will just fade away with no definitive answers to the various questions of what happened. 

Edited by jjb1970
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37 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I don't think we will find out the full story of this sorry saga. If the crowd funding creditors get their money back from credit card companies then they will move on and the CC company losses will be built into their cost model. The other creditors will probably look at the cost of legal action and the probability of receiving anything even if they win in court and will likely write it off (unless they are one of those who will do it to make a point). The liquidator will do their job but with £4800 in the pot plus whatever they might get for some of the assets which DJ has put down as having no value there is a limit to how deeply they will go. Unless DJM have done something which draws the attention of the authorities then I think this story will just fade away with no definitive answers to the various questions of what happened. 

I agree entirely.  The liquidators have a fiduciary duty to establish certain facts, particularly in the light of emerging information, to prove that the company was not trading while insolvent.  But beyond that they will lack the time/funds, and technical expertise (unless we offer them the latter?) to trace in any worthwhile detail exactly where money went and what was spent on any particular project in relation to funds acquired for that project. 

 

As far as recovering any customer losses is concerned a claim through the Small Claims Court process would cost £25 for a sum up to £300 but would obviously be pointless if made against a hollowed out company such as DJM which has little in the way of assets with a stated cash value.  However depending on the route taken by any monies paid to the company - i.e. were they paid through an individual's Paypal or bank account?- it might be possible to claim against the individual.   But to do that you need to know what account your money went into (did the Paypal route offer any information on that, I don't know as I avoid using it?).  

 

It seems likely that later payments definitely went into a company account because I'm sure Lloyd's wouldn't offer Clicksafe on a personal account.   But that system only offers protection to Lloyds bank customers to prevent misuse of their cards - such as somebody else trying to use it to pay for something,   That is all it does and it is for example of no help when seeking refunds.

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13 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

But to do that you need to know what account your money went into (did the Paypal route offer any information on that, I don't know as I avoid using it?).

 

Paypal tells you the name of the account you are paying in the receipt and in your activity statement. What you can't tell (as far as I know) is how the account you are paying is set up - business or personal. A quick online search doesn't throw up any advice - it's all about how do you tell if your own account is business or personal.
 

Edited by DavidH
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On 30/06/2019 at 11:01, DavidH said:

 

Paypal tells you the name of the account you are paying in the receipt and in your activity statement. What you can't tell (as far as I know) is how the account you are paying is set up - business or personal. A quick online search doesn't throw up any advice - it's all about how do you tell if your own account is business or personal.
 

 

Surely accounts for a limited company has to be in its name, I do not thing the account can be in another name unless its a subsidiary of the company

 

Perhaps someone more versed in law could explain the consequences, a simplistic view is you have not paid the company but the individual

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On 30/06/2019 at 09:40, jjb1970 said:

I don't think we will find out the full story of this sorry saga. If the crowd funding creditors get their money back from credit card companies then they will move on and the CC company losses will be built into their cost model. The other creditors will probably look at the cost of legal action and the probability of receiving anything even if they win in court and will likely write it off (unless they are one of those who will do it to make a point). The liquidator will do their job but with £4800 in the pot plus whatever they might get for some of the assets which DJ has put down as having no value there is a limit to how deeply they will go. Unless DJM have done something which draws the attention of the authorities then I think this story will just fade away with no definitive answers to the various questions of what happened. 

 

You're right, I'm not sure anyone ever will get a wholly correct set of figures as the liquidators didn't seem particularly bothered whether a full list of consumer creditors would be built (if not provided by the Director), if an individual wants to be listed than they may get on the list (but won't get anything) but I suspect most won't bother if they get a credit card refund (surely they were still a creditor at the point of ceasing trade and it's the credit card businesses who reimbursed the customer - whether they then have claim to be a creditor if they cannot claw back funds is up to them I guess and some people (probably mostly Paypal customers) just write it off to experience. In my conversation last week I explained that I may have a useful overview but they didn't even ask for contact information. In, out, next.

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Of course no-one knows how many were not refunded, and whether the funds retained were spent on the project they had committed to. It seemed curious that if the refunds were inspired by Paypal's concerns about "money laundering" they did not just debit the money from the bank account linked to the Paypal account and effect the refunds themselves. In retrospect this was another of those "red flags" because there were probably insufficient funds to effect refunds to everyone in an already underfunded business. And what exactly were Paypal's concerns?

Edited by Mike Harvey
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6 minutes ago, Mike Harvey said:

Of course no-one knows how many were not refunded, and whether the funds retained were spent on the project they had committed to. It seemed curious that if the refunds were inspired by Paypal's concerns about "money laundering" they did not just debit the money from the bank account linked to the Paypal account and effect the refunds themselves. In retrospect this was another of those "red flags" because there were probably insufficient funds to effect refunds to everyone in an already underfunded business. And what exactly were Paypal's concerns?

 

I spoke to Paypal at the time and they didn't know what I was talking about. Explained and the reply was to the effect; if it was money laundering they wouldn't be advising him to return the money to the "bad guys". Someone on here recently spoke to Paypal IIRC and he got a similar answer that there was nothing to indicate on the account that there had been an issue.

 

A massive red flag at the time but no one was wanting to hear that sort of thing? Save for a few of us 'naysayers'.

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I think in summery, the director (edit: possibly) has a cir. 30K liquidators bill coming and might have to surrender cir. 30K from his home to pay the Funding Circle loan!

 

When Hattons abandonned the King, I remember DJ took the design back with some thoughts of doing a OO one several years down the road, which quickly became the N gauge crowfunder version. Just a thought but maybe his debt to hattons was buying back the scan, cad work and maybe some returns stuff too. 

 

I feel sorry for him. He got out of depth and took a long time to see he was drowning - even when people were telling him and everyone else. And it looks like he will have nothing left in the end for these 6 years.  

Edited by JSpencer
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1 minute ago, JSpencer said:

I think in summery, the director has a cir. 30K liquidators bill coming and might have to surrender cir. 30K from his home to pay the Funding Circle loan!

 

There's no proof of either of those statements so they can't be considered a summary.

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1 hour ago, Mike Harvey said:

Of course no-one knows how many were not refunded, and whether the funds retained were spent on the project they had committed to. It seemed curious that if the refunds were inspired by Paypal's concerns about "money laundering" they did not just debit the money from the bank account linked to the Paypal account and effect the refunds themselves. In retrospect this was another of those "red flags" because there were probably insufficient funds to effect refunds to everyone in an already underfunded business. And what exactly were Paypal's concerns?

 

It was pointed out at the time that if PayPal had been genuinely concerned about money laundering then one thing they most definitely would not do would be to tell DJM what they were suspected of. Much more likely is that PayPal identified that a private account was being used as a business account or that there was a breach of their terms and told DJM they needed a business account or to amend the account details . Either way it was a huge red flag. 

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56 minutes ago, JSpencer said:

I think in summery, the director has a cir. 30K liquidators bill coming and might have to surrender cir. 30K from his home to pay the Funding Circle loan!

 

When Hattons abandonned the King, I remember DJ took the design back with some thoughts of doing a OO one several years down the road, which quickly became the N gauge crowfunder version. Just a thought but maybe his debt to hattons was buying back the scan, cad work and maybe some returns stuff too. 

 

I feel sorry for him. He got out of depth and took a long time to see he was drowning - even when people were telling him and everyone else. And it looks like he will have nothing left in the end for these 6 years.  

 

Given that we do not know what actually happened it is premature to have sympathy or otherwise for Dave Jones. 

Edited by jjb1970
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19 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Given that we do not know what actually happened it is premature to have sympathy or otherwise for Dave Jones. 

 

Well, no, but a bit of human compassion might not go amiss. I doubt he’s sunning himself on a Caribbean island while nubile virgins pop grapes into his open mouth. Instead, I suspect he’s having a pretty miserable time (and no, I haven’t forgotten the financial “victims”, of whom I am one). 

 

Paul

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35 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

Well, no, but a bit of human compassion might not go amiss. I doubt he’s sunning himself on a Caribbean island while nubile virgins pop grapes into his open mouth. Instead, I suspect he’s having a pretty miserable time (and no, I haven’t forgotten the financial “victims”, of whom I am one). 

 

Paul

How do you know he isn't?  He has vanished off the internet/social media 'radar' since the end of May so none of us have the faintest idea where he is or what he's doing or how much money he's got or hasn't got or what personal debts he has or hasn't got.   What we do know is that he has put a creditor's claim for £50k against the company he was until recently managing as its sole director and which he put into creditors voluntary liquidation.

 

On a brighter note I understand there's a factory in China which has some CADs for  which they have not been paid (in line, so I'm told on good authority, with the arrangement they had with the concern they were originally produced for) and that they might be interested  in finding another UK client to make use of them.  Of course that might not be a brighter note for them after all as they were reportedly intending to recover the costs of the CAD work when the project reached the tooling and production stage so it could be said that they too have lost out - so far.

Edited by The Stationmaster
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8 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

How do you know he isn't? 

...

 

I don’t. Hence my careful use of the phrases “I doubt...” and “I suspect...”; not, you’ll notice, “I know”.

 

But that’s the point, isn’t it? As you wrote, none of us *know*. So perhaps we should not automatically assume the worst, as some on here have?

 

Paul

 

 

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14 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

He has vanished off the internet/social media 'radar' since the end of May

 

 

Not quite. Someone has hacked into his e-mail lists and used it to send out a scam e-mail.

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16 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

On a brighter note I understand there's a factory in China which has some CADs for  which they have not been paid (in line, so I'm told on good authority, with the arrangement they had with the concern they were originally produced for) and that they might be interested  in finding another UK client to make use of them.  Of course that might not be a brighter note for them after all as they were reportedly intending to recover the costs of the CAD work when the project reached the tooling and production stage so it could be said that they too have lost out - so far.

 

Interesting!

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He's still alive and posting on other forums, same as before it all went belly up. His signature still states model designer and manufacturer. Ahem....! 

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