If you are looking to sell your business in this difficult financial environment, please be aware of this company: Phoenix Business Agents Ltd 7200 The Quorum, Oxford Business Park North Oxford OX4 2JZ.They are praying on vunerable business owners and have shoddy business practise.
Our business came into financial difficult as a result of the recession and we decided to put it up for sale. We advertised our business on the website "Business For Sale", however we were cold called by Phoenix Busines Agents saying that they had been sent details of our business by the said website "Business For Sale" and were offering to help us sale the business.
After speaking with them, we were a little suspicious of their intensions because it all sounds too good to be true, however after three months and our business had not sold we decided to ask them to come and value the business for us with a view to potenitally retaining them as an agent if we agree with their terms and conditions.
My husband works in the business full-time, he does not speak or understand English probably, hence all matters regarding the business is dealt with by me. He was the one that they met when they came to supposedly value the business on the 14th September 2010. Unkowlingly to him and myself, Phoenix agent got him to sign a sole agent contract, which demanded that we pay up front a fee of £1,000 excluding VAT for marketing and an additional £6,000 excluding VAT in agent fees.
Phoenix made him to believe that he was signing something else, when the appointment was arranged, we specified that it was only for a valuation, we wanted to have the choice to choose which agent to go with, however Phoenix decided to take that choice away from us.
Phoenix agent did not leave a copy of the agreement on the day of the valuation, I later found out what had taken place and became very concern, since that day we have been trying to get a copy of the agreement from Phoenix Business agents with no sucess. In the meantime, they sent us what they titled to be "a business plan" which was riddled with inaccuracy about our business, we believe what they had simply done is copy another document and inserted our business names in the document.
The other concern that we had was about the valuation of the business, which they put at £125,000 this appears unrealistic as we had a previous valuation of £55,000 for the business not so long back.
On numerious occasions we telpehoned and send emails asking for their terms and conditions to be sent to us and also an explanation of what their valuation was based on, we were sent a copy of the agreement that my husband had signed but minus Phoenix terms and conditions, so we were left in the dark as to what had been signed, what they were going to charge us and what exactly they were going to be doing on our behalf.
This week we received an invoice for £1,000 excluding VAT from Phoenix business agents and we were alarmed by this. We rang to speak to someone in the offices of Phoenix this week after several emails unsuccessfully trying to get them to explain what this £1,000 was for, we were put through to their office manager, who without any justification became ignorant and subsequently accused us of being rude and slammed the phone down our ears when I question her on this invoice and that they delibrately failed to leave a copy of their terms and conditions and failed to explain to to my husband what he was signing as well as not sending us a copy of the agreement for almost 3 weeks.
On two separate occasions we rang back and the phone was put down on us. Phoenix then rang my husband and began threatening him over the telephone saying that he had signed the agreement and was liable to pay the fees and referring him to clause 4 and 9 on their terms and condition, again she slammed the phone down on him.
We later sent an email to Pheonix in which we stated that we found their business practise very shoddy and suspious and wanted nothing further to do with them.
Two days later Phoenix Business Agents sent us an invoice for £8,225.00 threatening breach of contract and that if we do not pay by the 14th Ocotber that they were going to call in their debt collectors. We have a failing business which is the reason why we have put the business up for sale, this is an additional problem which we do not need in our lives at the moment, this company is dispicable and people should think twice before signing anything with them.
We are being threatened for no reason and we feel this is probably not the first time that this company has done this sort of thing.
It is our belive that Phoenix purposely did not leave a copy of the agreement that their forced my husband to sign; Send a copy of the agreement to us; Value the business at an unrealistic price in order to extort money from us.
Company like this should not be allowed to get away with such shoddy business practise, as well as trying to make people aware of them, we have also filed a complaint with Trading Standard as well as Consumer Direct Via the OFT webit.
Please be aware of this company and don't let them side step you as they have done us.
