Since I wrote my last piece concerning a factoring company acting less than respectably I have been forwarded an email sent to most if not all of the clients of a spot factoring company by those masters of self promotion Market Invoice Ltd
From: Thomas Sutcliffe
Date: 21 October 2015 13:29:54 EEST
To:
Subject: MarketInvoice
Hi *****
I believe you are currently using **************** as a spot invoice finance provider.
MarketInvoice work similarly but we are on average 50% cheaper, don’t take debentures or guarantees, have higher advance rates and are much quicker at getting the funds to you.
We have a quick online application if you want to see if we can fund your business. https://p.marketinvoice.com/app#/seller/account/create
It’s free to do and should only take a couple of minutes. Thanks.
Kind Regards
Thomas Sutcliffe
Business Development
Leaving aside the ethics of approaching the clients of a competitor to tell them that you are cheaper (which is highly debatable) Market Invoice are also claiming that they don’t take debentures which again is untrue.
It is a fairly simple matter to conduct a search at Companies House to find details of all the companies that a factoring company has a charge over and interestingly enough if one were to do the same to Market Invoice as they have obviously done to others you would find that the company that allegedly don’t take debentures have actually taken quite a few as follows:-
06059488 Absolute Edge Ltd
08239256 Annecto UK Ltd
08732701 Applebridge Construction Ltd
OC348485 Barlows (Retail Electrical Solutions) LLP
08768452 Barlows Retail Limited
07706549 Blucon Limited
07268881 Build4me Limited
06746083 Byyd tech Limited
08257527 Cable Power Limited
07988462 CM One Ltd
01494452 Computer Remarketing Services Ltd
05465993 Concorde Solutions Ltd
03271609 Concrete Media Ltd
07782581 Crafts Bargain Corner Ltd
08502710 Critical Resource Ltd
07632876 Direct Office Contracts Ltd
04220936 Deamtek Ltd
08863706 East Midlands Energy Services Ltd
08016588 Elimco UK Ltd
08881132 Est Renewables Ltd
04452584 Focus Scaffolding Ltd
07331792 Freedom Renewables Ltd – In Administration
05487099 Golf Bookers Ltd
03907607 Gradweb Ltd
07003407 Greenbuy Energy Ltd – In Liquidation
04849603 Greencyc Ltd
08295766 Greenoke Energy Ltd – In Liquidation
05698290 Gyrocom Ltd
07646296 HeadsGRP Ltd
06936063 Hooper Productions Ltd
07373180 Ice Academy Global Ltd
02939105 Ice Energy Heat Pumps Ltd
05136537 IHS Corporation Ltd
08136988 Insulation NE Ltd
04731727 ITS Projects Ltd
04349192 LCC Deployment Services UK Ltd
04708094 Maynards Electrical Contractors Ltd
03713679 McKinney Rogers International Ltd
07109707 MP Energy Ltd
03848698 Osprea Logistics Ltd
07556396 Patchez Ltd
06060169 Peerius Ltd
03135186 Phoenix Electrical Engineering Services Ltd
05367566 Pixel Projects Ltd
SC327304 Prater Contracts Ltd
06619874 Property & Training Solutions Ltd – In Liquidation
03000135 Ralph Coleman International Ltd
08067061 Rebel Minds Ltd
06741422 Reconsulting RTC Ltd
04933736 Resorthoppa UK Ltd
03402188 RNR London Ltd
08667253 SIS Digital Media Ltd
06894877 Site One Ltd
07437386 Somo Custom Ltd
06860380 Somo Ltd
07419084 Specific Heat (London) Ltd
07774640 Swiss Bullion Ltd – currently subject of winding up petition
08327554 Synchro Software Ltd
SC355209 Taylor Hopkinson Ltd
08214283 Tesla Energy Services – In Liquidation
05896266 The Knowledge Engineers Network Ltd
08236274 Threen Site Services Ltd
06761659 Trendstream Ltd
07250861 Twincentric Integration Ltd – currently subject of winding up petition
07326023 UK Room (London) Ltd
05711612 Woods Environmental (Leeds) Ltd
That’s quite a lengthy list for a company that allegedly don’t take debentures and I sincerely hope that all of the many factoring companies and brokers reading this aren’t going to “do a Market Invoice” and approach them all to try and pitch them to change providers but if they did I suppose that it would simply be a case of karma.
I recently expressed concerns in another blog post that perhaps due diligence on debts put forward for funding to internet invoice discounting companies was either not done or was inadequate and that fingers might be burnt as a consequence. If a normal factoring company funds debts that aren’t recoverable for any reason they stand to lose money but in the Market Invoice business model it’s the online investors that stand to lose money if a debt is irrecoverable and a look at the documents filed by the Administrator of Freedom Renewables Ltd at Companies House show what a dicey business it can be if the proper homework isn’t done as it seems that one or more invoices issued by the company that were funded to the value of £633,790 are the subject of dispute by the customer and the remaining non factored invoices which probably come under the terms of the floating charge seem to be a bag of brown stuff too.
Links
I’ve just had an email from another factoring company telling me that a new client of theirs was targeted by Market Invoice two hours after the debenture was registered at Companies House.
I’m guessing that they are deliberately targeting clients of single invoice factoring companies as they are probably closer to their own target market and if anyone else has any more stories about grubby sales tactics please let me know as I’m happy to name and shame where the behaviour warrants it