Complaint Review: Phoenix Business Agents Ltd

Like others I was approached by this company to sell my business. To be fair, the guy that came (Zulf Hamid) made an excellent job of selling his company to me - so much so that I was confident that he could then sell my business. I agreed to his terms and signed up to them and then paid an up-front fee for marketing, etc.

After that, silence!!

I chased and eventually was told that they were waiting for more financial information from me (they were given most of it at the original meeting) and so I provided it. I did then receive the first draft of the 'sale particulars'. I should really have listened to the warning bells that were then sounding. But no, I spent a lot of time correcting things and carried on.

Well the details were eventually finalised to my satisfaction and we were listed on various websites, etc. I then received my first monthly 'report' - and here the grammar and factual inaccuracies were so bad that I emailed and tried to help them correct things. I was wasting my time as they were clealry unable to even comprehend that their English was so bad. My concern was if they were unable to present a decent letter to me, how were they communicating with any prospective purchasers?

Time moved on, not a lot happened - well apart from one supposedly prospective viewing! The only problem was that the person booked to view did not turn up, it was his wife and her sister and apparently the sister was looking to buy a business. We were so far out of her league and what she wanted that it took all of about 30 seconds to realise that we were both wasting each others time.

Not a lot was happening although the monthly reports seemed to indicate that their had been a number of enquiries. So, one month, I asked for further details in regard to the reports (like what actually were the comments back from all the supposed enquiries). I received such a rude and insulting email that I decided that enough was enough. I called time on the company and asked for my money back as I felt that the company had breached their contract. I was told that they would see me in court and that they would be issuing a counter claim against me when I adivsed them that I was taking them to court.

Well they did see me in the small claims court in Oxford in January this year. And not only was I able to get my contract rescinded, I also obtained compensation for my claim (OK not all my original costs but it was more a case of trying to obtain a moral victory as much as anything else) and, of course, I got all my court costs back. The judge was amazed that I had not sued for character defamation because of the way I was treated and written to by Phoenix. No doubt the court records can be accessed if anyone wishes to prove that I am not making any of this up.

I was just so glad to be shot of this company and would happily dissuade anyone else from ever considering them. I have yet to find any of their supposed 'happy' clients as all my research led me to find was other unhappy clients desperately trying to get out of their contracts with Phoenix.