Its sometimes comforting to know that some things in our fast changing world never seem to change.....
Research from CIFAS, the UK's Fraud Prevention Service recently revealed that when looking at UK addresses actively involved in perpetrating recorded frauds, 8 of the top 10 Uk postal districts were either in the East End or South East London. Perhaps Delboy Trotter would be smiling wryly that Peckham made the list of top fraud hotspots.
Nice, but dodgy little earners seem to be commonplace too in East Ham, Plaistow, Forest Gate and Bromley By Bow.
Interestingly though, the so called "honour amongst thieves" culture of criminals not stealing from "their own" looks like it continues to flourish; when it comes to facility takeover frauds (where the criminal hijacks and plunders the victim's bank account) ,the top postal districts for victims include Maidenhead, Aldershot, Beckenham, Hove and Leicester.
The research doesn't show the nation's capital in the best light of course, but I'm sure a small minority of London's population is proud to keep alive the long standing traditions of the Kray twins' East End. For the rest of us, we must keep our guards up as fraud activity continues to escalate.

July 31, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, they might just as well be blamed for it, since they are being blamed for most of the country's woes since the credit crisis began in earnest last year. Most recently, The British Plastics Federation said 6,800 jobs are going to be lost "as firms struggle to obtain credit insurance". I am presuming here that companies involved in supplying plastics have pulled out of doing business with clients when credit insurers have pulled cover on them, on the basis that these clients represent a high risk of defaulting. In other words, without the blanket of insurance, they themselves consider the risk to be too high to trade uninsured. If plastics companies thought that credit insurers had got their assessments wrong......... why, they 'd go ahead and do business and take the risk on regardless, right ? If this were the case, no jobs in the industry would be at stake.
Lets face up to the facts, credit insurers will not take on "known risks", otherwise their business model would be totally suicidal.
Packaging News magazine recently claimed that 86% of firms wanted government help to obtain credit insurance, but the government won't take on these risks with taxpayers money either....its hardly a vote winner!
The fact is that there are large numbers of companies struggling in this recession that do not represent viable credit risks at the moment. All I'm saying is that in the midst of this particular economic storm, don't expect credit insurers (who have suffered more than most incidently), to back them all with their money.
In all recessions, there will be casualties. FACT. Those companies that survive the downturn usually come out stronger as a result.

July 23, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

The recent news on Allied Carpets planning to shed jobs and shops across the country might be good news for major rivals like Carpetright, but it doesn't spell good news for the carpet retail sector in general. The economic downturn hasn't been kind to a number of sectors affected by the reduction in consumer spending and the weakened property and housebuilding businesses.It must be tough being in the carpet retail sector at the present time. Some smaller operators located near closing down Allied Carpet shops may benefit of course whilst others not in such good locations may continue to struggle. As the CBI stated this morning on the BBC news, job losses will continue to rise well into next year if things are left to continue the way they are.

July 6, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's hard enough for small businesses at the present time to obtain credit from banks and trade suppliers. so, if you're a small company or an accountant in practice with SME clients, don't take actions that only make things worse.
Many established private businesses have been tempted to register themselves as limited liability companies in the last few years. I say tempted because recent government legislation has meant that small limited companies don't have to file too much in the way of financial information at companies house anymore. The trouble is, by doing so, good credit histories can be lost!!
I came across a case the other day when Graydon was asked by a computer distributor why his credit rating had gone from 50, 000 GBP per month to 1000 GBP. We looked it up on the graydon database to discover that his partnership (which did enjoy a 50k credit rating for many years) had recently ceased to trade as a partnership and had registered as a Ltd company. Being a different legal entity,his whole excellent credit history was lost at a stroke.

OK, when he told us his tale, the key man at the business was pleased to see that Graydon could do something about it. However, it strikes me that in these circumstances it would be much better if a newly incorporated company was able to publish this simple fact at Companies House upon registration or placed maybe in the principal objects e.g "the business was established with principal objects to continue a long established business trading under the name of John Doe Computers at 16 the Mint, Reigate"

At least then the public and credit agencies could be proactive in dealing with this issue rather than left in the dark to the detriment of the business concerned. Has anyone been affected by this?

July 1, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)