Category Archives: Business

How Do I Find Out If a Company Has Gone into Administration?

Business, Finance & Insurance, , ,

So I recently had this problem where a company I was dealing with (and who had taken my money) stopped providing me with the service and seemed to disappear. They were not answering any of their phones and no-one could get hold of them. Chances are that they had gone belly up but how do I find out if they had gone bust?

My first search led me to check the UK Companies House register. They were indeed listed on here as a limited company (you can check here) but they were still registered as an active company. My next search advised me to phone Trading Standards so I googled for a phone number for the local branch of where the company was based. It came up with a general number for Citizens advice but apparently Trading Standards farm out their calls to them. They said that I would have to phone Companies House. So I called them and they said they had not been notified of the company going into administration and that they would only be notified or take action if the company failed to file any returns or else had lodged with the Insolvency service.

So next stop was to phone the Insolvency Service. I asked them again, what would happen if a company has gone bust but hasn’t notified anyone? They didn’t really have an answer. All anyone kept saying was that they would take action once the company notified them. Somehow I don’t think the first thing on the director’s list was to call the Insolvency Service… Anyway, they mentioned the Official Receiver as being the person who would investigate, so I googled them. They are pretty much part of the Insolvency service but what I did find there was a form to report people who are acting incorrectly. This answered my question really about companies who do not notify anyone that they have stopped trading. Other people can report them and hopefully the Official Receiver will investigate. You just need to fill out a form with all the details. You will need to get the Company Registration number from the Companies House website as well as the address, phone etc.

So if you think that a company has gone bust and you can’t find out any information about whether or not they have gone into administration then you can report them yourself. The place to report them is here and you can do it online or by post.

And don’t forget that if you paid by credit card then you may be entitled to get your money back from your credit card provider under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

Finding a Wholesaler

General

If you are thinking of selling products on eBay then one way to make some money is to get your products from a wholesaler. Or perhaps you know what you want to sell but you don’t know where to get those products from. If this is the case then there is a great way to get access to a whole lot of wholesalers. Obviously buying at wholesale prices gives you much more scope to make a profit on eBay and also selling in bulk will get you a larger turnover and hence income.

There is a website where you can get instant and unlimited access to 8,000 pre-screened legitimate wholesalers. There are suppliers of every shape and size, including a large portion who are happy to ship overseas and many with no or very low minimum order requirements.
Salehoo is one of the largest communities of online traders with over 75,000 members with community forums and smart seller training.

To learn more about this online community and gain access to these wholesalers check out the SaleHoo website.

Gadgets Priced the Same in Pounds and Dollars

Business, Computers & Electronics, ,

So recently we have been comparing the prices of some gadgets in pounds and dollars and there seems to be a great discrepancy for some reason. So why are a lot of gadgets priced the same in pounds as they are in dollars? (if not more).

One particular item in question is the new cheap Kindle. In Amazon in the US you can get hold of this Kindle for $79 yes in the UK you have to pay £89. Why is this? If you use the current exchange rate of pounds to dollars  of around 1.6 dollars being equivalent to a pound then £89 equates to $142 – which means that the price is 80% higher than in the States – which is pretty ridiculous.

            

If anyone has any input about why the prices of gadgets and technology in the UK are so much higher than in the US then please leave your comments below as we would be interested to hear.

This is just one example but if you look at other gadgets then they also seem to have a similar pricing structure so why are people int he UK suffering with higher prices?

Driving Directions – Mapquest

Business, Internet, ,

Gone are the days of having a mapbook in the back seat pocket of your car and getting it out whenever you needed to find directions to where you were going. Also gone are the days of stopping and asking for driving directions as it seems that these days there are much better ways to find a map for your route.

Not only do a lot of cars now have satnav installed where you can just program in your destination and be guided there by a softly spoken voice, but also now, if you don’t have satnav then you can just look up the route in advance on a website like Google maps or mapquest.

If you need driving directions, particularly to anywhere in the US, then all you have to do is type in your start and end points on mapquest or Google maps and it will tell you the route instantly. However, the problem for mapquest is that with Google being the biggest search engine, Google maps is also getting the most use for driving directions. Even more so when Google started putting a map thumbnail using Google maps into relevant searches.

Although Mapquest have been around since before Google even existed, coming up against a giant like this is always going to be a tricky situation. Mapquest are now venturing into the Android market, going head to head with Google maps.

It would be good to find that small players with good products could still compete with the likes of Google but the next few years could be the crunch point for Mapquest.

Converting Fahrenheit to Celsius

General,

It seems that people either think in Fahrenheit or Celsius and are often unable to really ‘feel’ what a temperature is unless they have it in the units that they are used to. That is often the case with weather temperatures anyway.

But not only do we have different measurements for weather in Celsius and Fahrenheit but also when cooking, some ovens use one and some use another temperature. Often it differs from country to country but in some places you can buy ovens that read either celsius or Fahrenheit.

Anyway, to convert from one to the other manually you do the following:

Celsius to Fahrenheit
multiply by 8 and divide by 5 then add 32

Fahrenheit to Celsius
Take off 32 then multiply by 5 and divide by 8

These are not totally accurate figures but this is the easiest way to remember it if you need to get an approximate number and you don’t have google to hand! The easiest way is to just type in Google the conversion that you want like ’28 celsius to fahrenheit’ and it will tell you the answer.