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Re: DCM Money Solutions - In administration
Hi All.
I have just stumbled across this thread, so apologies for being a bit late on the scene.
Back in late 2010 we had a client (we are accountants incidentally) that had entered into a DMP with this company. The client one day casually mentioned that they seemed to be still getting threatening letters from there creditors, despite being on a DMP for well over a year.
Out of morbid curiousity i decided to do some digging. Without boring the pants off everyone i managed to link all the associated/commonly controlled companies linked to APEX and DCM. What i found was absolutly staggering. On paper the core companies looked in reasonable shape (from what i remember anyhow), but as i linked everything together the core businesses (APEX and DCM) only looked good on paper as they were showing hefty debtors balances owed to insolvent companies which were controlled by the very same directors. Why were those companies insolvent??? Well this is were it gets interesting. Several of the businesses had severely overdrawn directors loan accounts...In essence this means that the core companies had lent money to several of its sister companies (which was client funds from its clients) and then that money was then distributed to directors. What disturbed me more was that they clearly were not keeping proper client account records and were clearly using client moneys to prop up there own business (being that several thousand pounds had gone missing from my clients funds and there bank cash balance at APEX/DCM only amounted to around 8k..... Slightly dodgy if they have 1,000's and 1,000's of clients and mine alone had several 1,000 missing.
The worrying thing is when i initially uncovered all of this (and was given the run around by DCM) I went to the FSA, trading standards and OFT and neither wanted to know (in fact they all said it wasnt there problem to deal with).. Fortunatly for my client i got them every single penny back that they had paid over (including management charge fees).
I am dissapointed that the authorities didnt investigate when i first brought it to there attention, as this would have saved some peoples cash at the very least.
The one thing i will say is that the whole thing was very complex and I suspect it was originally started by the late director, but at the end of the day the new guys were still responsible for taking clients money and using it to prop up there own business after Mr Baird (dec'd) death.
Whatever became of the directors? did they get prosecuted does anyone know?
Hi All.
I have just stumbled across this thread, so apologies for being a bit late on the scene.
Back in late 2010 we had a client (we are accountants incidentally) that had entered into a DMP with this company. The client one day casually mentioned that they seemed to be still getting threatening letters from there creditors, despite being on a DMP for well over a year.
Out of morbid curiousity i decided to do some digging. Without boring the pants off everyone i managed to link all the associated/commonly controlled companies linked to APEX and DCM. What i found was absolutly staggering. On paper the core companies looked in reasonable shape (from what i remember anyhow), but as i linked everything together the core businesses (APEX and DCM) only looked good on paper as they were showing hefty debtors balances owed to insolvent companies which were controlled by the very same directors. Why were those companies insolvent??? Well this is were it gets interesting. Several of the businesses had severely overdrawn directors loan accounts...In essence this means that the core companies had lent money to several of its sister companies (which was client funds from its clients) and then that money was then distributed to directors. What disturbed me more was that they clearly were not keeping proper client account records and were clearly using client moneys to prop up there own business (being that several thousand pounds had gone missing from my clients funds and there bank cash balance at APEX/DCM only amounted to around 8k..... Slightly dodgy if they have 1,000's and 1,000's of clients and mine alone had several 1,000 missing.
The worrying thing is when i initially uncovered all of this (and was given the run around by DCM) I went to the FSA, trading standards and OFT and neither wanted to know (in fact they all said it wasnt there problem to deal with).. Fortunatly for my client i got them every single penny back that they had paid over (including management charge fees).
I am dissapointed that the authorities didnt investigate when i first brought it to there attention, as this would have saved some peoples cash at the very least.
The one thing i will say is that the whole thing was very complex and I suspect it was originally started by the late director, but at the end of the day the new guys were still responsible for taking clients money and using it to prop up there own business after Mr Baird (dec'd) death.
Whatever became of the directors? did they get prosecuted does anyone know?
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