Worst Administrator I've Ever Dealt With...
Became involved with this accountancy firm after a supplier went into liquidation owing us thousands.
Having operated businesses for over 14yrs there have been a few times when this has happened and so have dealt with a few administrators over the years but I have to say that the experience with DFW Associates has been the worst.
Accept it or not the fact of the matter is that the creditors of a company that has gone bust are basically the clients/customers of the accountancy firm. How? Because their fees come draining the pot of carcass of the business that has gone belly up and so we creditors pay their salaries. With that being the case you'd think you'd get treated very well right?
Well maybe it was just me but over many years of the administration/liquidation I got the feeling I was nothing more then a complete nuisance when contacting DFW Associates for basic information/questions. Many emails with simple requests such as a general update or please confirm you have everything you need from me, please confirm receipt of new bank details would routinely get ignored on the first and second attempt of my request.
Only on the 3rd or 4th attempt to contact the liquidator or owner of the company would they grudging reply. The excuse almost always being "the email went into my spam box". Pfft. Something used again and again.
Furthermore the director of the defunct company attempted to drain the creditors put with a bogus £180k invoice. After pushing, this was disallowed and seen as made up but for whatever reason DFW Associates felt no reason to recommend a director ban to the Insolvency Service even though the director had totally lied and it was clearly something that they needed to look into and could well have resorted in the director receiving a ban if not worse.
Whilst I cannot prove it I really do feel like because this was a small liquidation and so less money in fees for them it was put on the back burner and creditors like my company had to wait much longer then we needed to.
One thing I do know is that the funds from the liquidation were all received in early December 2020 and the liquidator stated that he planned to issue creditors their payments before the 18th December 2020.
Of course nothing happened and so on 11th January 2021 I emailed asking what the hold up was. No response received of course.
So on 14th I emailed the owner and was finally paid the following day via bank transfer. In that email I was told "all other creditors were paid via cheque". To me, mentioning that implied that asking for a bank transfer was me being an even greater nuisance and/or implying this led to a month long hold up! Really guys? Really?!
In short, I really hope I don't have another supplier that goes down the pan and ends up with these guys. If you're a creditor looking to place a company in liquidation then I'm sure these guys have all the qualifications and skills to get the job done but if my experience is anything to go don't be surprised if you get treated like a nuisance / number on a spreadsheet.