Page 1 of Phoneboxdirect.co.uk has gone into administration

PHONEBOXDIRECT

Mobile Media Systems Limited - t/a Phoneboxdirect and Mobile Affiliates Limited t/a Coolnewmobile and Phones2yourdoor.
These companies were placed into administration on Wednesday 14 November, the joint administrators being Philip Lyon and Steve Wood of Mazars LLP.
Phone Box had been actively marketing via the internet mobile telephones which offered cash-back incentives to customers, providing certain conditions were met by those customers.
Unfortunately the number of customers that were able to comply with the terms and conditions and hence became eligible for the cash-back payments exceeded the company's expectations. The company is therefore no longer in a position to meet its ongoing liabilities to those customers.
It had been hoped that negotiations with the supplier of the telephones and the networks involved would have enabled a "rescue package" to be implemented to assist those customers affected.
Unfortunately it has not been possible to achieve that objective within the timescale available to the company.
The company has insufficient money available to enable payments to be made to employees and therefore it will no longer be able to answer any individual telephone enquiries. In addition, it follows of course, that email communications will remain unanswered.
We are in the process of obtaining the company's records of the email addresses of all customers. Any future communication will be by email or posting to the company's website (www.phoneboxdirect.com) or (www.coolnewmobile.co.uk).
We anticipate that customers main queries will be regarding cash-back claims. Our initial investigations show that these liabilities may be between £4-10 million. There is no possibility that the company will be able to make any meaningful payment to any creditor, whether consumer or supplier.
The second query from customers is in connection with their ongoing contracts with the network suppliers. We are unable to advise individually on this point and would suggest you to contact your network supplier direct or you may wish to take legal advice or contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau or Trading Standards Office.

Bugger.

Quote:
We are unable to advise individually on this point and would suggest you to contact your network supplier direct or you may wish to take legal advice or contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau or Trading Standards Office.

Does that mean I may have a chance of getting out of contract? I thought it would be tough s*** as they aren`t relevant to my phone contract as they are a completely separate entity?



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This item was edited on Tuesday, 20th November 2007, 13:06

Quote:
Does that mean I may have a chance of getting out of contract?

not been a legal boff myself i`m only making some form of educated guess here. . . but, if you work on the premise that they are having to break the contract ie they cant pay you back as promised then I would think you would have some entitlement to simply walk away from said contract


Chris

A.C.C. Member
LFC
YNWA

Quote:
. but, if you work on the premise that they are having to break the contract ie they cant pay you back as promised then I would think you would have some entitlement to simply walk away from said contract

I thought they got around it by me having two seperate contracts one with Vodafone, one with them??



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well i;m not overly familiar with these sort of deals. I always just assumed that the company offering the deal to you as the customer had the agreement (somehow) with the phone companies and that the only deal/contract you struck was with the providing company and not Vodaphone/Orange etc

were you told at any point that one contract is separate and non dependant on the other??
If not would you have a case from the POV that when you entered into the transaction you were told/of the opinion that the contracts were not separate and hence the breaking of one part affects all agreements??

Like I say I am guessing from a position very much in the dark


Chris

A.C.C. Member
LFC
YNWA

I can`t see the lawyers from any of the phone company`s allowing themselves to be held accountable if someone else f***s up.

Dr 42%er


Care in the football community is proved not to work.


It`s not easy being different. It`s not easy being cool....but somehow I manage....

also true

Chris

A.C.C. Member
LFC
YNWA

Few years ago, I had a cashback contract with Forward Cellular, who went bankrupt.
Vodaphone were not interested.
I had to pay Vodapone £30 per month,
but they did allow you to change to a lower tarif after 6 months, which I did.
I never even got a phone from Forward Cellular, it was a sim only contract.
That has taught me a lesson. Now I stick to the companies owned by CPW group as they least likely to go bankrupt compared to others.

Quote:
Now I stick to the companies owned by CPW group as they least likely to go bankrupt compared to others.

Not necessarily, the whole point of them having other companies rather than doing it through the CPW group is so that they are no liable for debts any of the subsidiary companies amount.

A good example of this is ITV Digital.



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