‘Don’t use Delta Taxis’
Friday 19th March 2010, 2:30PM GMT.
CALLS for a boycott of Delta Taxis are growing after the firm collapsed owing thousands but appears to be trading as normal.
They are being led by shareholder David Willcocks (pictured), who claims he put £17,000 into the company in 2006 and says he is also owed £5,750 he lent the business to pay rent arrears.
A Facebook campaign site now has 100 angry followers and another online site indicates passengers are unhappy about Delta’s past service.
Posters on thisisguernsey.com are complaining about poor service and rudeness from Delta staff and many are urging the firm should be shunned until more details of the buyout and who is behind it are made public.
After Delta was put into compulsory liquidation, former managing director Mike Newsom claimed that he had sold the company’s assets to Ashdon Lyme Ltd, ensuring the taxi service would continue as normal.
Mr Willcocks was adamant Delta should not be allowed to walk away from its debts simply because it is now operating under a different name and has called for people to stop using it.
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Yep, I haven’t used Delta for some years. They don’t turn up on time, or at all. They don’t call when arriving early, they don’t answer the phones.
Waiting half an hour in the freezing cold at 3 in the morning, only for them to not turn up. No thanks.
The point I am making is there are plenty of other guys in the phone book who would be happy for the business.
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Whilst getting a connecting flight to alderney via Guernsey I found my self with 4 hours to wast so I got a taxi with delta down in to town, They must have thought i had never been to guernsey before because they tried to charge me £17 to get to town. I refused and was screamed at and told I would not be aloud out of the taxi until i paid. Thankfully the door of the taxi was not locked so i walked off. Im only glad it was me in the taxi and not a tourist. Delta is one of the 1st contacts anyone not from guernsey has with the island and they don’t do us a service they let us down time after time.
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Delta taxis are always using our road as a cut through……. which I wouldn’t mind too much if they went slowly, carefully and quietly. But many of them drive way too fast and use their horns as they approach the bends in the road to avoid having to slow down. In my opinion…. that always advertises bad driving and every one in the neighbourhood has to listen to it.
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rosie – and this problem is ONLY Delta taxis?? come on, it is a problem with the majority of taxi drivers – you can’t say it is down to one company!
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It was November last year when we booked a delta taxi from st. joseph church going to the princess elizabeth hospital for 8.50am. We were at the church entrance by 8.40am standing in the rain waiting…9.10am no taxi came and when we called delta…the man on the phone said that the taxi was there at 8.50am and there was no one there to pick up. we insisted that we were there standing 10 mins early and no taxi came… the man on the phone started shouting over the phone telling us it’s not their fault when the taxi driver did’nt see anybody. (the road in front of st. joseph church is a one way road , so it’s very impossible for us to missed it at any chance). So no taxi came and we are very late with our appointment for 30 mins. Fortunately, a lady who just drop her grandaughter to school gave us a lift to the hospital. Since then , we never called the delta taxi again!
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Whether the point of view is justified or not, the press should refrain from using its headlines to try to issue direct orders to the public.
Do this, dont do that…. because we say so?
I do not want to hear it myself.
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It should be born in mind, that there are different legal issues in play.
Fact 1: A new company has purchased the assets and trading name of Delta Taxis, which is entirely within the law for them to do so. Therefore the new company may have grounds to pursue a liable case against anyone who damages there business through defamatory remarks.
Fact 2: The new company did not buy ‘Delta Taxis’ as a business.
Speculation: The administrators will have to determine the historical financial trading position and check if the previous director/s did not trade when there was no reasonable basis to do so, ie: increasing losses. Also, if for example the director’s under sold the assets including the trading name, they could personally be held to account, as they would if it was proved they traded illegally.
The big questions:
1) Why on earth did the Tax Department allow the debt to grow to £50k?
2) Why did the new company decide to employ a person who could not run a profitable taxi firm himself?
3) The new company could have just bought the assets without the trading name, and left the controversy behind them. Who calculated, that the name was of such high value that the possible adverse publicity would still justify the purchase?
4) Were the sale proceeds set off correctly against outstanding creditors?
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We at delta taxis have yes been inappropriate at times, yet now being under a more pro active management we will no longer accept less then the best from are drivers. We over the coming weeks and months plan on gaining the trust back from are loyal customers. If any person has a complaint or grievance with are selfs please feel free to contact us. We plan on setting out responsible repayment plans to who ever we may be in a great dept to.
We hope that we can be giving a second chance from the people of Guernsey and we say sorry for any upset we may have been responsible for.
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I agree with po boy Guernsey press should not have an opinion. The news in any form should be non biased towards any individual, political cause, race or company. I think an apologia is due.
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i think mr mike newsom should not be allowed to work in the new company or any company that has anything to do with taxis.
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The Press article does not tell people not to use Delta. It is reporting that a creditor of the company has started up a Facebook site and asking people not to use Delta. Not quite the same thing.
Devil’s Advocate
Its not quite as straightforward as that.
Once a company goes into liquidation, the liquidator takes over the running of the company and the previous powers of the directors automatically cease. As the liquidator clearly knew nothing about the sale of the assets of Delta to the new company, it is either invalid or it must have happened prior to going into liquidation when the directors were still in office.
If we assume that the deal was done prior to going into liquidation, then the directors will have had to ensure that they were (a) not trading insolvently, and (b) that any transactions with which they were involved did not prejudice any of the company’s creditors. They will need to demonstrate that the new company paid a fair price for the company’s assets, including its goodwill (i.e. the trading name). That is very hard to evidence unless offers were openly sought from the public to get the best price possible. It doesn’t look like that happened in this case.
I suspect that its going to get very interesting, not least because taxpayers seem understandably unhappy at the possibility of liabilities owed to Income Tax and Social Insurance being evaded in this manner.
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Delta Taxi
Seriously I think your post must be a hoax, but if not I think you should try telling it to the courts.
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Delta your service is very bad your reputation is the worst on the island I missed a flight because of your crap service and when I compained you lot did not want to know.
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@Delta
it appears your grammar is as bad as your service!!
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David..
I was refering to the headline, not the article under it being used to try to issue commands.
Dont Use Delta Taxis
without quotation marks as the headline is just that to anyone who glances at the paper but maybe does not proceed to read it.
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Po Boy
Sorry – I only saw the online version (with the quotation marks) and not the printed version without them. The printed version should definitely have contained the quotation marks as I agree that the context is completely different without them !
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David: Its not quite as straightforward as that.
I am not sure what part is not straight forward, as you have basically stated the same points. Except, I was commenting on the basis of press reporting that the assets were sold prior to the liquidation.
Many a company has traded when ‘technically insolvent’ and successfully traded back to financial solvency. The issue is, can the directors prove there was a reasonable expectation to do so, if not and the longer the losses are allowed to accumulate the directors risk being made personally liable.
The fact is, the new company is not Delta Taxis, it is a separate legal entity that has bought the rights to use the name ‘Delta Taxis’. For the life of me I do not know why the new company did not start with a new name.
It does call into question the trust islanders place in local companies and should highlight the need for all Guernsey companies to at least file a annual balance sheet so potential creditors can evaluate how much credit or whether they are willing to provide any credit to companies that are high risk.
I also believe the States Social Security department should not allow any company to fall behind with contributions.
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Devils Advocate
I’m not sure that your understanding of the “trading whilst insolvent” issus is quite the same as mine !
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It will be interesting to see if either the police or the environment dept take action against the new entity or its directors. Clearly from the time of liquidation the cars were operating without licences; hence they were running unlicenced taxis….
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David:
I understand, you are just talking about ‘insolvency’.
I am not privy to the management accounts, so I do not know whether the company was ‘insolvent’ or just ‘technically insolvent’
(if its liabilities exceed its assets.
Either way, if the business could not pay its debts as they come due, the business is insolvent. In either case, the consequences both for the business and for the individuals concerned can be severe.
Wrongful trading is the act by Directors of a period of trading in which debts and liabilities are incurred and typically increase, whilst having no reasonable prospect of a company avoiding insolvent liquidation. It is the action by Directors of accepting credit when it is highly unlikely that the same would be discharged due to the financial position of a company.
Wrongful Trading only applies to company Directors, whereas Insolvent Trading can be undertaken by individuals such as sole traders.
There are two tests for solvency defined in (UK) Section 123 of the Insolvency Act 1986, being 1) are your assets exceeded by your liabilities and 2) are you failing to discharge your debts as and when they fall due. If you satisfy either criteria then you are technically insolvent in accordance with the definition of the same in the legislation.
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Devils’s Advocate
I agree fully with your description of insolvent trading.
And indeed you have hit the nail on the head. If a company cannot meet its debts as they fall due, then it is insolvent. If it is insolvent, then the rights of its creditors are protected in law. If those rights are then prejudiced by the directors of the company selling the company’s assets to a related company, then unless the directors can demonstrate that they had the assets fairly valued and took reasonable steps to secure the best possible market price for those assets, then the protected rights of those creditors, which include States Income Tax and Social Insurance, and thus indirectly every Guernsey taxpayer, appear to have potentially been prejudiced, and that deal can be set aside.
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David – Yes exactly.
Which is why I cannot understand why a new company would purchase a ‘trading name’ that has suffered such bad publicity.
Under such circumstances, the new company should have bought all the shares in ‘Delta Taxis’ for say £1 and then injected new capital to pay off existing creditors and continued trading with a positive media publicity.
So I guess, assets were sold for less than the outstanding creditors! and as you say, if not fairly valued, can be set aside.
Interesting times for the ex-owner!
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Maybe I’m stating the bleedin obvious but surely one of the very first things a taxi company should sort out is their operating licence. Just a thought…
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KD
How right you are, and if they weren’t licensed to carry fare-paying passengers does that mean that they weren’t insured either ? Driving without insurance would be rather a disastrous offence for a taxi company to commit, as well as for the company’s directors of course.
The plot thickens….
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The new company should have just called themselves Delta II as that’s all they’ll be thought of if they ever do start operating.
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