Anybody who has been following the thread about DCM Money and Apex on consumer site MoneySavingExpert will notice that ClearDebt have been mentioned a few times in both a positive and a negative light.

Recently, ClearDebt’s Andrew Smith signed up to the forum to respond to some of the questions and to offer advice to those who needed it. Sadly, the forum moderators at MoneySavingExpert removed his posts without any notification or providing a reason why.

ClearDebt’s Andrew Smith, posted under the username of “rednelly” and although his posts have now been removed from the site, thanks to google’s cache of the website we managed to take these screengrabs of Andrew’s responses. You can click on the images to enlarge them in order to read the text and we have also re-posted his comments here as people who have been affected by Apex and DCM Money may find them useful.

Possible Outcomes for DCM Money and Apex clients

Andrew’s first response was made to a poster who was unsure about completing the forms sent to her from the Apex and DCM Money Administrators. This is what he wrote:

First, Creditors may vote at the meeting only if they have submitted a claim to the administrator before the meeting, together with, if necessary, a proxy. So, if you return the claim form with proofs of debt you get a vote – the power of your vote is proportional to the value of your proved debt. In other words, if there are creditors votig who are owed a total of £100,000 and you are owed £10,00, then your vote is worth 10% of the total. A simple majority by value of those present and voting in person or by proxy is required for the approval of the administrator’s proposals.

Now, the resolutions:

Resolution 1 – Once the administrators have fulfilled their responsibilities (in this case they have said that the objective of the administration is to get better result for creditors than would be obtained through an immediate winding up: they aren’t expecting to be able to distribute any money, so this probably only relates to statutory duties to report directors conduct, etc) they need to decently bury the company – this resolution gives them the power to do that by having the company dissolved or applying to the court for a compulsory liquidation. In this case the Official Reciever will usually become the liquidator.

Resolution 2 relates to another form of burial of what’s left – in this case a creditors voluntary liquidation, with the current joint administrators becoming the liquidators. In a CVL I believe there has to be a crediors meeting, and the directors have to tip up and answer creditors questions. Could be quite exciting.

Resolution 3: This allows the administrator to fix his own remuneration on the basis of time properly spent (he and his staff have to keep records and they get monitored on this point by their recognised professional body) if a creditors committee isn’t voted in to assist the administrator.

Resolution 4: The administrator incurs postage costs in communicating with creditors. This allows that expense to be claimed back (but at cost only – they can’t make a profit on it).

Resolution 5: There’s 25 grand (about £24 for each ex-client) left in the company. The administrator is asking for you to vote in favour in order that he can pay his fees from that.

Resolution 6: The administrators are asking to be discharged from any liability for errors that might have been made, once hey cease to act as administrators. I think if they do something dreadful they can still be hauled up before the beak – but this protects them from being attacked legally from small errors, which sometimes occur and – lets face it – in this case there might be a lot of room for unintentional error, which wouldn’t be their fault.

There’s always a tendency to have a moan at the insolvency practitioner – they are often the only ones who seem to benefit from a case like this: But they do have statutory duties to carry out and there would be much more chaos otherwise.

Could ClearDebt honour the contracts given to Apex and DCM Money clients?

Another of Andrew’s posts was a response to a poster going by the name “NeutralObserver” who, amongst other things, made the suggestion that ClearDebt should honour the original contracts given to Apex and DCM Money clients. This was our response:

I am a ClearDebt employee. There is a lot wrong in the above. First, we did not purchase the book. We purchased the clients details only and we did this after the collapse – not before.

And, the amount that appears to be missing seems to be considerably more than our annual profit. But, even if we could afford a bail out, why would it be fair for us to do so? We have had absolutely nothing to do with this failure.

ClearDebt has absolutely nothing to do with tthe events that have led to DCM clients being in the position they are now in. We are doing our best to help sort out their futures. Those who choose our free debt management plan will, in perpetuity, have every penny paid to their creditors. And, yes, we are providing IVAs to those who will save by doing so – and we are charging industry standard (protocol compliant) fees for doing so. I don’t believe we are adding to the misery DCM’s failure has caused and to make us in any way responsible for it is ludicrous.

In our opinion, all we were trying to do on MoneySavingExpert’s forum was to try to help people and to keep the record straight. If you have a question for ClearDebt about Apex and DCM, you can do so at our Apex DCM discussion on the ClearDebt Community