Debt consolidation company goes bust - keeping my BIL's money!

[ANNALH]

Hello,

I need some advice. My BIL has just told me he has been paying a debt consolidation company for 6 months who were supposed to be paying his creditors for him. He then finds out they have not made any payments so his creditors are harrassing him and demanding money. Then to top things off the debt consolidation company has gone bust and he is worried he has lost all the money he has paid to them. They are called 'Payless Finance' based in Manchester. Cant find any info on them.

He is on the verge of being taken to court by his creditors even though he told them what has happened. But he cannot afford to pay them what they want, after already paying the dc company for 6 months!

Can anyone give me some advice please?

[Gingerheid]

Strange company; not a mention of where they are from on their website.

From publically available information the website was registered to:

38 Linksway Drive, Sunnybank
Bury
Lancs
BL9 8EP
United Kingdom

Which from aerial photos seems to be very much a residential address. This address could be something to do with the company; or it could be an accountant or domain registrar. I can't find it advertised as either of these though.

This isn't a registered company, so it looks like your brother in law was dealing with an individual, not a company that has the ability to go bust.

For

Payless Finance
Victoria House
Sunny Brow Rd, Manchester, M18 7AE
0161 272 1689

I find this, which also doesn't look hopeful.

Read Post - Payless Finance (Gorton, M18 7AE)

What looks even less hopeful if that I presume your brother started paying the money a long time after they did a runner on this person.

Home seems to be related; their website used to show the same phone number as payless finance used, but it has now been removed. They use quote the same consumer credit licence number.

I have completed the contact form for Debt Simple UK with some details and a phone number that I keep for that sort of thing. If they contact me I will try and get some information from them and pass it on to you. There doesn't however seem to be a link between Debt Simple UK and Debt Simple, based in Nottingham.

All seems very dodgy. To took many from someone in these circumstances is a horribly cynical, so I would hope that trading standards would take this up. Alternatively; if the individual has been made bankrupt; I would hope that the Official Receiver would be asking serious questions about what happened to the money.

From a moral point of view it sounds like something the police should be interested in, though whether or not they actually would be is always another matter .

[ANNALH]

When I looked it up under companies house i found a limited company called Payless Limited which seems to be the same one, they changed name from Cash Bank and had a compulsory winding up order against them.

Company regstration number is 04537852. I think this is the one but havent seen his paperwork yet so will have to check the address etc. But this company went bust last year so it seems to tie up with what he is telling me.

[Gingerheid]

You could try the liquidator and see if they say it is the same company.

However the payless website I looked at was last updated in 2007. If a company called Pay Less has gone into liquidation, to start trading as Payless would be a criminal offence (unless they bought the name from the liquidator, and the subtle change suggests they haven't or they wouldn't have changed it at all.)