The Booterstown story

As many of you know, the Booterstown shop closed down a number of weeks ago. Many people have been asking me what happened, so here goes...

This shop operated as a franchise and, as a business and legally, was totally separate from our own shop in Dalkey. Bill, the owner, after working full time in Vodafone for the last few years, decided to put it into liquidation. Many suppliers have been affected by this, none less than ourselves who are out of pocket to the tune of over €15k.

Now businesses fail all the time, and it is certainly no shame or surprise in the "current economic climate", but the way that Bill went about it has left everyone with a bitter taste in their mouth. If everyone had been allowed in to take their stock back in full, we would have been saddened, but not angry. Instead, we are only allowed to take back stock specified on certain unpaid invoices. So, in my case, there is over €13k of stock in the shop, but I can only get back around 5k - the balance is older stock that has technically been paid for. The other 11k of the stock that has been invoiced has been sold over Christmas. Is this fair? No, I don't think so either.

I am not the only one in this situation , there are others in the trade who a just as angry as I am.

By going into liquidation, Bill has chosen to pay a liquidation company out of the pockets of the suppliers to whom he owes money. The liquidation company gets paid in full, Bill's company gets wound down, Bill walks away and the rest of us are left in the shit.

Today's lesson?

Trust nobody.