Pinpointing the problem
Collecting monies due once a company has ceased trading always proves more challenging, but when the products supplied have a warranty in place, this can become even more difficult.
Hilton-Baird was engaged by a leading high street funder to recover its exposure on a ceased client, a distributor and retailer of binoculars and microscopes that had been manufactured in China, which had a 10-year warranty on its products.
Although these products had been produced to a high standard and had no previous issues, the invoiced customers grew concerned that this guarantee would become void and opted to withhold payment.
The director therefore reassured his customers as to the quality of the products and proceeded to offer settlement discounts. However, take up was limited and things slowly ground to a halt, which led to the appointment of award-winning debt collection agency, Hilton-Baird Collection Services.
Initial discussions with the debtors confirmed their hesitation in paying for these products without a warranty in place, so it became clear that something had to give to bring a successful conclusion.
Having then assessed the products ourselves and agreeing that they were manufactured to a high specification, we were able to facilitate the director of the ceased business personally backing the warranty to give its customers the required security to settle the outstanding sums.
The result was that the funder’s position was fully recovered and the customers of the ceased business had an agreement they were happy with going forward.
