Small and medium sized businesses need to be aware of a rising wave of frauds affecting companies big and small. The current most frequently used type of fraud is often called “Fake CEO Fraud” and we would urge all UK businesses to stay vigilant or potentially stand to lose significant sums.
So you have just won a new client. You aced the bidding process, the initial project meetings went well and the money is good. You can’t wait to get started, when out of the blue you get the following note from their finance people:
“Please be advised that our payment terms are 60 days from date of invoice. This will override any payment terms stated on your invoice. Payments will be processed accordingly on the final Friday of each month.”
What do you do?
Having to chase late payments is sadly an experience most people in business have to go through at one time or another. But knowing when irritating delays have crossed the line into a breakdown in the business relationship can be difficult to fathom.
Cash flow is important, but long-term survival depends on holding on to the clients that you invested in.
A brother and sister from Greater Manchester have been convicted of fraud after using a network of sham companies to defraud businesses out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Mohammed Ali and Samira Saddique set up a string of fake businesses, specialising mainly in so-called debt collection, but in reality the companies were nothing more than a vehicle for advance fee fraud on an industrial scale.
Read more: Dodgy B2B Debt Collector Directors Jailed for Decade of Fraud
Work has stopped on the restoration of Lancaster Castle after the company working on it was placed into administration. York based William Anelay Ltd, one of Britain’s oldest heritage restoration and construction companies, had been working on a programme of work to repair 70 per cent of the castle’s roofs and deal with weather damage to the fabric of the 1,000-year-old Grade II Listed building.
Read more: Lancaster Castle restoration "on hold" as contractor goes in to administration
If a French client owes you money, you can apply a certain amount of pressure to encourage payment, and many clients will pay up eventually. But in some cases, you’ll need to instruct a lawyer in France to collect the money you’re owed.
Debt collection in France is a slightly different procedure, compared to debt collection in the UK. This blog provides a rough guide to your options and the types of court action you could bring.
French courts will uphold court judgements made in other parts of the EU and, in some cases, outside the EU as well. For the purposes of this article, we are referring only to court action taking place in France against clients who live and work there.
We recently blogged about Crowdmix, the London-based start-up that went into administration. It’s a sad fact that many businesses fail within their first year. This can’t always be prevented: starting a business is tough. But there are certainly things you can do to avoid disaster.
Profit is important to all businesses, but don’t underestimate the importance of cash flow either.
London based start-up Crowdmix Ltd was in the process of developing a social media music platform. But before it could even launch its product fully, it ran out of money despite having previously raised £14 million in funding.
As of Monday 11 July, 2016, it has left its creditors, many of them freelance contractors, tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket. If you’re owed money by Crowdmix the prognosis for recovery is not good, so let’s look at what happens next.
