Complaint Review: Law firm Gencs Valters in Estonia - Tallinn Internet

In May 2016 we contacted law firm Gencs Valters in Estonia, asking them to help us establishing a company in Estonia. Our request for their assistance was conditional on Gencs Valters being able to use their contacts with certain banks to ensure that the company we had in mind would be granted a bank account with a bank they would recommend.

We specifically and repeatedly stated this condition, because we had read online from several people who tried it that Estonian banks routinely refuse opening an account for Estonian companies with foreign owners, when those companies and owners can't demonstrate a significant connection to Estonia, such as having Estonian employees or focusing on the Estonian market.

Gencs Valters repeatedly assured us that it was 100% guaranteed that any Estonian bank would open a bank account for any Estonian company, with or without substantial connection to Estonia. Mr. Gencs himself emailed us, stating that "the account will be opened." Their repeated assurances persuaded us to go ahead and use their services and pay for their invoice to establish a company and help opening a bank account, which was EUR 1800. Their invoice included many items that we did not request or wanted, such as a company address and VAT registration. There was also an item "bank application" at a very significant cost, even though we had told them we would apply in person and would not need them to apply for us.

However, as soon as we had paid Valters Gencs' invoice, they told us that there was no guarantee that a bank would open an account for us after all, and that Gencs Valters had no influence whatsoever on the bank's decision. We immediately demanded a full refund, which request they ignored, stating again that they were certain that an account would be opened. When we asked whether they would refund us if this would turn out to be false, they did not answer.Since they refuses to refund us, we had no other option but to go to court over the matter or to take the risk of losing time and money in an attempt to set up the company and the account, so we decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and proceed.

Gencs Valters then sent us half a dozen Power of Attorney documents for us to sign, including POA's that were wholly unneccesary in our opinion. Gencs Valters demanded that the POA's be apostilled (which would have to be done by a Notary public that lived 250 km away). When we examined the POA's, they included in our opinion clauses that explicitly and allowed Gencs Valters to liquidate our company without our prior permission, terminate our bank account without prior permission, and add a 3rd party to our bank account and take any sum from our bank account and transfer it to any 3rd party without our prior permission. When we asked them to remove these clauses, they ignored us.

We explained that we did not need them to establish a company for us and open a bank account because we would soon be in Estonia personally and, using our Estonian e-residence card, we would be able to register the company in minutes, get a much cheaper company address. We'd need to personally show up to open a bank account anyway.

It became clear that Gencs Valters tricked us into paying us a hefty invoice for wholly unnecessary services. They managed to deceive us into paying for those services by giving us the impression that they had a "special relationship" with an undisclosed bank, which would definitely open an account for us. As mentioned before, as soon as their invoice was paid, they said that there were no guarantees whatsoever.

Conclusion: Gencs Valters now has more than 2000 of our dollars, without having performed any of the services specified in their invoice, and without going to. They refused to refund us. They tricked us, using falsehoods, into paying their invoice. The small print in their (unrequired!) Power of Attorney's permits them to have full control over our future company and our bank accounts, giving them the perfect leverage to enforce payment of future invoices.

When we repeatedly demanded a refund for their unrendered services on the grounds of their elaborate, time-consuming requirements being unwanted and on the grounds of them having fraudulently obtained payment (using false promises), they kept ignoring us. When we warned them several times that a continued refusal to honor our request for a refund would result in possible damage to their company, they continued to refuse a refund. We have given up dealing with them. Beware of estonian law firm Gencs Valters!