Witch Hat Morgana

I think a S75 has a good chance of succeeding but obviously credit card provider will need to satisfy themselves that WH has ceased trading with zero assets before they make any payments.

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They probably knew exactly what they were doing (follow the audit trail on Companies House, linked companies and creditors etc)

I use AMEX as my primary card for that reason. They don’t mess around and do provisional credits instantly in many cases, forcing the vendor to explain why it should be reversed again. They are very consumer friendly.

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There’s no statutory timescale for banks to respond to S75 claims. However, if you’ve not received a response within 8 weeks from submitting your claim, you can escalate the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) without consent from your provider. All providers know this and it costs them money if FOS get involved, never mind the grief involved. So, you should get a response within 8 weeks, whether they say so or not. If you don’t off, to the FOS you should go…

The FOS is also the route for appeal if the bank refuses your claim. That’s assuming you’re sure S75 applies.

Likewise, it’s worth remembering what S75 is all about. It makes the credit provider jointly liable for the transaction, so you’re claiming from your credit card provider not WH. The credit provider may try to recover the money from WH or the administrator, but their failure to do so does not relieve their liability.

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Speaking to a former WH employee yesterday and like many of us the are out of pocket and will have to claim any redundancy ect via the government. However everyone who has an amp with WH has been contacted.

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:+1:

I am a little puzzled that I have only seen mention of contact with witch hat (former) employees and not the insolvency practitioners who have allegedly been appointed. I would have expected that the IPs would be doing all the speaking To people. After all they are supposed (with the help of the directors) to draw together a list of all assets and liabilities. The claims should go to them not the company / its employees.

I am not suggesting that what is happening is wrong - but I would expect it to be different. But I am not an insolvency practitioner so it’s not my field of expertise

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Never look a gift horse. If I had not taken the initiative it could have been months before I received my amp. Others will get their amps back sooner rather than later.

That would be my expectation too. The historic financials of the business are small enough that there may only be very limited involvement of the IPs and I’m not sure what the position of various people wrt the company is - for example one of their servicing and product design gurus seemed to be a subcontractor not an employee. It could be that people getting their own amps back makes life simpler.

For those that have retrieved amps, were these serviced, part-serviced or untouched?

Of course customer units that they had in for repair are not assets of WH. And it’s also quite conceivable that the repair business was actually a side company or a sub-contract that isn’t in receivership. You can’t really assume anything.

I agree - but the IP shouldn’t be letting employees hand things back without some check of who owns what

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No criticism from me of your actions. I am just kind of asking out loud why nobody seems to know who the insolvency practitioners are.

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I agree with that too. But if all the repair work was with a sub-contractor (eg a mate who isn’t actually employed by WH) then the IP could have agreed that all the customer units he holds that haven’t been worked on can be released back to the owners or something similar. That wouldn’t be visible to us necessarily.

But nobody has said that is so. And I have done a search on the London Gazette which is the official record for announcements of insolvency appointments. The only Witch Hat entry is 2017 for Witch Hat Limited (I searched for “witch”). The company resolution for winding up was dated 24 May 2017 and the notice posted 31 May 2017. If the practitioners were appointed a few weeks ago then the gazette should have the listing and notice by now. Suggests that IPs have not been appointed - though maybe there is a breakdown in the system somewhere

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Perhaps xyz company trading as wh?

I think it was Witch Hat Servicing Ltd - and that is the name (ie including servicing) that everyone seems to have been referring to.

There is also a Witch Hat Hifi Ltd (N Burke a director of that and Witch Hat Servicing) but that shows as dormant

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It’s Witch Hat Limited. There is a notice of final account prior to dissolution dated 28/4/23 although interestingly the company winding up is dated 1/3/23.

application-pdf

I wonder whether the IP has an address.

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The IPs name and address is on the form in the link from Companies House. On my previous post.

That was a little joke. Clearly not a very good one.

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