AVOID. A bunch of scammers & frauds!
Without question, the worst supplier experience I have had in business.
We purchased a VFFS packing machine from Machinery Automation Ltd to automate part of our production. What followed was 6 months of delays with 100% prepayment, well into over £25,000 of losses due to the machine being faulty which is confirmed by an independent engineering investigation, HSE. Now we are in process of solicitors, mediation and ultimately County Court proceedings.
The machine took around 6 months to arrive after a 3 week promise . When it finally arrived, we identified serious issues concerning missing items, installation and training and, most importantly, the safety and conformity of the machine.
We paid for an independent mechanical engineer to inspect it. His report raised serious safety and compliance concerns, including guarding, emergency stop provisions and conformity documentation and basically said its the "worst machine he has saw in his life" (he has 45 years experience)
Machinery Automation Ltd repeatedly disputed our position and maintained that the machine was compliant.
Our concerns were serious enough that we reported the matter to the Health and Safety Executive. HSE subsequently investigated the safety and conformity of machinery supplied by Machinery Automation Ltd and HSE has since confirmed that the machine is a severe breach of health and safety legislation.
Then came the part you genuinely couldn't write.
The representations made to us regarding this machine and its compliance were seriously fraudulent from their directors Ian Parkinson and Ben Parkinson . We were scammed by these lying frauds and now we are £25k down and in ongoing legal disputes
A little break down... we incurred over £10,000 in additional staffing costs, over £1,800 in legal fees, independent engineering costs and approximately £2,128 for custom film which was not delivered with the machine as expected. On top of this, a finance agreement i have to pay the bank for the nex 3 years + more!!!! .
We didn't rush to court. We spent months trying to resolve this through emails, formal correspondence, solicitors, settlement attempts all of which the directors Ian and Ben denied and straight up lied about everything
Even look at their companies they are trying to close down their companies and if you look at previous ones by them it seems like they have been scamming for years with all their charges, closed companies and active ones
I mean come on they have 3 active companies right now all doing the same thing.... does that not seem fishy??
No agreement has been reached, so County Court proceedings is following.
I have extensive documentation supporting my account, including correspondence, invoices, engineering evidence, legal correspondence, HSE documentation and court documents.
This company and all their other ones should be closed and their directors should be investigated on a personal level for outright lying to us making us lose tens of thousands of pounds
Do your due diligence, get absolutely everything in writing and independently verify any safety or compliance representations before accepting machinery.
One star because zero isn't an option.