DJM - Statement of Affairs released

[truffy]

9 hours ago, AY Mod said:

However, they do seem to have the mechanisms to proceed even if full information isn't made available to them as shown in this example.

 

It does seem though, as @polybear alluded, that their "mechanism to proceed" seems to be to stop doing anything in the face of any lack of cooperation from someone who has more to gain from not cooperating. That's reassuring....(not really)

 

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by truffy
dumb as rocks image uploader! :@

[AY Mod]

1 minute ago, Vistisen said:

Go on disprove me

 

The case being discussed there is nothing to do with DJM. It was an example shown to illustrate how a liquidator can conclude reports without full information. Starting to chuck incorrectly used words around such as 'slander' causes me to spend unnecessary time addressing the misplaced comments.

[robmcg]

9 minutes ago, Vistisen said:

 

Any factual evidence for this slander? I have always been amongst those who doubted the likelihood of DJM succeeding in the long term. But I believe until there is documented proof that Dave was not doing something criminal. i think he was merely incompetent with a dash of being too smart with his explanations.  The RMweb tendency to go into destructive harmonic motion means that about the only conspiracy theory we need is that Dave was abducted by aliens a few years back. Go on disprove me! there is just as much hard evidence that this happened as there is for many of the other theories in this thread. 

 

Mostly this interesting and well-moderated thread has been about DJM's demise and feeling for those who have lost money, and why, and there may be some scenarios but not slanderous ones.  A few unknowns, of course.

[truffy]

6 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

an example shown to illustrate how a liquidator can conclude reports without full information

Sorry, Andy, but all it showed, to noddy me at least, is that if the liquidated does not cooperate with the liquidator the latter just stops doing anything more. Have I missed something?

[ian]

13 minutes ago, truffy said:

Sorry, Andy, but all it showed, to noddy me at least, is that if the liquidated does not cooperate with the liquidator the latter just stops doing anything more. Have I missed something?

 

True, but when a company goes down owing >100K the HMRC are usually one of the creditors and they have the power and resources to investigate, track down missing funds and bring criminal prosecutions. No benefit to the other creditors of course.

[roythebus]

10 hours ago, Talltim said:

I've just realised who you are. My dad built me one of the kits, still got it somewhere.

It was and still is a very good model. i've still got a few around.

[roythebus]

36 minutes ago, truffy said:

Sorry, Andy, but all it showed, to noddy me at least, is that if the liquidated does not cooperate with the liquidator the latter just stops doing anything more. Have I missed something?

No you haven't missed anything. If the liquidated doesn't co-operate then there's little the liquidator can do without the relevant information. The chances are there's no money left in the pot, no profit for them so why chase what isn't there. which is the point I've tried to make in my contributions to this thread. Don't bother chasing what isn't there.

 

To save a lot of speculation, has anybody on here actually bothered to look at the state of affairs of DJM on the Companies house website? I have.  

Edited July 3, 2019 by roythebus

[GWR-fan]

Most likely no illegality,  however, were the numerous projects actual commitments or possibly seen as a revenue source?  From an accountancy viewpoint then surely as an astute businessman with the interests of crowdfunders as his basis,  there would be detailed accounts highlighting all income (deposits) for individual projects on the credit side plus all relevant expenses on the debit side of the ledger.  If VAT has been received then was it remitted to the relevant government department?

 

Much has been stated of ineptness in running a business, however, can ineptness account for the inability to detail all income sourced from crowdfunders, particularly as it seems that some deposits were paid into personal accounts.    Even a person doing a household budget is able to detail incoming revenue and outgoing expenses.  Alas, like much of this businessman's past life the details are simply not available to us mere mortals.   When some one's past is cloaked in anonymity is it really a good idea to fund such a proposer?  Dave received credibility as "Dapol Dave" on this forum,  however, in hindsight who actually is Dapol Dave?  

 

Some good however may emerge from all this in that those who wish to propose a crowdfunded project to win confidence will need to "come clean" with full details as to their past business experience,  how much financial interest that they have personally in the project,  plus an accessible registered business street address. The proposer would need to "publish" regular ongoing details of progress on the project and barring a possible verified delay at the factory level,  be able to deliver in a guaranteed timeframe or else financial penalities will be incurred by the proposer.  This should ensure that the proposer is committed to the project and not simply "enjoying" the benefits of running a scheme.  

[chris p bacon]

48 minutes ago, GWR-fan said:

Some good however may emerge from all this in that those who wish to propose a crowdfunded project to win confidence will need to "come clean" with full details as to their past business experience,  how much financial interest that they have personally in the project,  plus an accessible registered business street address. The proposer would need to "publish" regular ongoing details of progress on the project and barring a possible verified delay at the factory level,  be able to deliver in a guaranteed timeframe or else financial penalities will be incurred by the proposer.  This should ensure that the proposer is committed to the project and not simply "enjoying" the benefits of running a scheme.  

 

This sounds so familiar...... 

 

I hope it's not Deja vu .. 

[jjb1970]

I don't think we will ever know the answers, for a number of reasons, but some of the questions are germane to how we view aspects of the hobby. In particular, crowd funding. 

 

I read the Station master's posts on the CAD files and arrangements between DJM and factories which are very informative and perceptive and it all seems to come back to questioning where the money went. It doesn't appear to have gone to factories, and things like a scanning party can't account for it unless he was serving guests beluga caviar and chateau briand prepared by a Michelin 3* chef accompanied by fine vintage wine for the lunch. And given the issues with accounting and the website I would hope it wasn't absorbed by accountant and Web developer fees. So we end up with the fundamental question being how much was taken out of the business by DJ as salary and fees. 

 

If products had been delivered to the agreed price and quality then whatever DJ might have taken out of the business would have been his affair. I think that if anyone is talented enough to get rich by being very good at what they do and managing to provide clients with something they value and also make a good margin then that is smart operation and I wouldn't begrudge them. However if the company tanks, doesn't deliver product and leaves an empty pot and a lot of creditors then the question of how much was taken out does become a matter of legitimate interest. 

[Legend]

13 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I don't think we will ever know the answers, for a number of reasons, but some of the questions are germane to how we view aspects of the hobby. In particular, crowd funding. 

 

I read the Station master's posts on the CAD files and arrangements between DJM and factories which are very informative and perceptive and it all seems to come back to questioning where the money went. It doesn't appear to have gone to factories, and things like a scanning party can't account for it unless he was serving guests beluga caviar and chateau briand prepared by a Michelin 3* chef accompanied by fine vintage wine for the lunch. And given the issues with accounting and the website I would hope it wasn't absorbed by accountant and Web developer fees. So we end up with the fundamental question being how much was taken out of the business by DJ as salary and fees. 

 

If products had been delivered to the agreed price and quality then whatever DJ might have taken out of the business would have been his affair. I think that if anyone is talented enough to get rich by being very good at what they do and managing to provide clients with something they value and also make a good margin then that is smart operation and I wouldn't begrudge them. However if the company tanks, doesn't deliver product and leaves an empty pot and a lot of creditors then the question of how much was taken out does become a matter of legitimate interest. 

 

Absolutely true we don’t know how much he took out the business , but more fundamental than that we don’t know how much crowdfunders put into the business by way of deposits for Kings, 92s APTs. I think that would be stage 1.Figure out the amount of money in before  figuring out how/ if he used it . As said before I’m not sure all the money/any crowdfunders deposits went into the company . 

[Colin_McLeod]

Any merit in crowdfunders voluntarily stating on this thread what they paid. This might not capture everybody but would give an idea of a minimum amount.

 

I'll start off. Paid £250 via PayPal to DJmodels. That got refunded, then I paid £250 again August 2018 for a 14 car APT.

Edited July 4, 2019 by Colin_McLeod
To add date

[jjb1970]

3 minutes ago, Legend said:

 

Absolutely true we don’t know how much he took out the business , but more fundamental than that we don’t know how much crowdfunders put into the business by way of deposits for Kings, 92s APTs. I think that would be stage 1.Figure out the amount of money in before  figuring out how/ if he used it . As said before I’m not sure all the money/any crowdfunders deposits went into the company . 

 

Indeed, I am making an assumption that there were enough crowdfunders to have met the minimum order criteria plus necessary contingency for projects like the APT based on what DJ told the world. In the case of projects like the King and 92 it seemed like they were always just about to go into tooling. How many times was it posted that they were making good progress and about to go into tooling? Every question just seems to invite further questions. 

[DavidH]

9 hours ago, roythebus said:

To save a lot of speculation, has anybody on here actually bothered to look at the state of affairs of DJM on the Companies house website? I have.  

 

Is this the statement of affairs linked to on the very first page of this topic, about which the majority of the discussion has been (bar side-tracks on cake or loco running qualities), or have you found another one?

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

9 hours ago, roythebus said:

It was and still is a very good model. i've still got a few around.

 

I had one.  I ruined it by making it badly.  Sorry, Roy.

[DavidH]

34 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Any merit in crowdfunders voluntarily stating on this thread what they paid. This might not capture everybody but would give an idea of a minimum amount.

 

I'll start off. Paid £250 via PayPal to DJmodels. That got refunded, then I paid £250 again August 2018 for a 14 car APT.

 

Merely a suggestion, but if it's really necessary (and is allowed under site rules) do it in a separate thread - things like this can result in pages of data that are difficult to wade through.

[truffy]

8 minutes ago, DavidH said:

 

Is this the statement of affairs linked to on the very first page of this topic, about which the majority of the discussion has been (bar side-tracks on cake or loco running qualities), or have you found another one?

I think, from the image that Roy posted, that he's referring to the last micro-accounts filing, not the statement of affairs.

[DavidH]

Unfortunately I saw no image (and can still see nothing except an unclickable link)! It did seem like a strange thing to ask ...

[The Stationmaster]

21 minutes ago, DavidH said:

Unfortunately I saw no image (and can still see nothing except an unclickable link)! It did seem like a strange thing to ask ...

 

Make your way via this link (which has been posted previously in this thread - several times) and chose whatever one you wish to to look at.  The Statement of Affairs - for what it's worth - is at the top of the list and every year's micro accounts (for what little they are really worth in the present situation) are also there as you scroll down.   But don't expect to get even an inkling of what money came in, particularly from crowdfunders, and where it went in more recent years.

 

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08601496/filing-history

 

Incidentally referring to a comment in another post further up this page I have a pretty good idea that HMRC do not accept either ineptness or ignorance as a valid reason for not accurately declaring financial information where potential taxation is involved.  And if they carry out an investigation they are probably more likely to start from a situation where they suspect there might have been avoidance rather than anything else.  I think HMRC, more than any other organisation, is the most likely to peer much more deeply into financial goings on at DJM although whether even they will be able to clearly identify crowdfunding payments is to my mind a very moot question.

Edited July 4, 2019 by The Stationmaster

[RedgateModels]

24 minutes ago, DavidH said:

Unfortunately I saw no image (and can still see nothing except an unclickable link)! It did seem like a strange thing to ask ...

 

I've reported this as a possible bug

 

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by RedgateModels
Andy has provided an answer :)

[atom3624]

Just a little update on my situation.

 

I had paid a £30.00 deposit on a 92, but wasn't certain when this all initially 'kicked off' how I'd done it.

 

Turns out it was with my Debit card.

 

I made a claim through the 'Debit card disputes' department my bank apparently has.

They requested a copy of the original invoice - fortunately the website was still active - invoice sent.

I received a message today effectively saying "We've taken a decision to temporarily credit your account pending confirmation from the 'company'. In the event it is disputed it may be withdrawn again."

 

I'm looking at it as a 'half full' situation, so we'll see!!

 

I wouldn't have thought of lodging the request were it not for this thread.

Thank you - so far - to all.

 

Al.

[Legend]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Indeed, I am making an assumption that there were enough crowdfunders to have met the minimum order criteria plus necessary contingency for projects like the APT based on what DJ told the world. In the case of projects like the King and 92 it seemed like they were always just about to go into tooling. How many times was it posted that they were making good progress and about to go into tooling? Every question just seems to invite further questions. 

 

I wasn't being critical of you JJB , and you are indeed correct that every question leads to another one . I think we can all truly say its a shambles.     Can we assume he reached the minimum order quantity + contingency . He may have winged it on the basis that orders would flow in over time . Its not something you or I would probably do but with DJ who knows, I'm sure I've seen a reference to that somewhere.

 

As I've said I think the starting place is trying to figure out how much crowdfunding was sent to him. Then probably you could go to Liquidator and challenge where money was recorded.  You would want to check receipt to see if it was given by Dave Jones or DJ Models . What sort of receipt did you get , who issued it, was VAT charged? Any idea of the account number it was paid into etc .   But this obviously requires a lot of work and co ordination . In addition I suspect there maybe some Data Protection issues surrounding names and addresses were a list to be created.

[AY Mod]

35 minutes ago, Legend said:

1 - Can we assume he reached the minimum order quantity + contingency .

 

2 - He may have winged it on the basis that orders would flow in over time .

 

1 - I don't think we can.

 

2 - I'm not saying which of course but it depends what's more important at the time; the money or the model?

[woodenhead]

14 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

1 - I don't think we can.

 

2 - I'm not saying which of course but it depends what's more important at the time; the money or the model?

Point 2 sounds like you're no longer convinced there were models in the making.

[AY Mod]

5 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Point 2 sounds like you're no longer convinced there were models in the making.

 

They were in the process but not, I don't think, where people were led to believe they were. As jjb said:

 

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

How many times was it posted that they were making good progress and about to go into tooling?