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We were unfortunate enough to cross paths with Gareth Smythe of Hilton Smythe (he is also director of several other companies) in October of 2011.
He gave us his sales spiel and convinced us to sign up to sell our business, he even offered to reduced their percentage fee and contract terms in order to secure for them the opportunity to sell our business valued by them at close to £1m.
From day one we were hounded by a Liam (another director at Hilton Smythe), we got calls from him on a daily basis asking for every detail you can imagine on the company at one stage they even wanted photographs of vehicles that were used in the business!
Only after the few weeks on the market they began putting pressure on us to reduce the asking price, within a few months we were told the business was not going to fetch anywhere near their valuation and we should consider offers at least £250k short of the asking price.
After failing to sell the business in 8 months, they sent us an invoice for £24k totally out of the blue, claiming we were in breach of their terms and conditions in particular "fails to produce any information that we deem necessary to assist in the sale of the business"
We had in fact supplied over 40 financial documents relating to the company, including full accounts for 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Gareth and Liam then kept calling asking for immediate payment or threats to take us to court, when we refused to pay the invoice, they tried to negotiate an out of court settlement asking for £10k +VAT.
We stuck to our guns and refused to pay them anything, they then began court proceedings. All the initial court filling and correspondences with our solicitor were done by Gareth himself (our solicitor even commented, he looks like he has done this many times before). Once they realised we were not backing down and were prepared to see them in court, they again tried to negotiate an out of court settlement, but we refused to make any deals with them.
They have now been forced to get legal representation, we are looking forward to seeing them in court in the next few weeks and hopefully the judge will see through these con artists and a hefty legal bill will deter them from doing this to other businesses in the future.
I welcome any information regarding anyone may have with regards these scammers.
I confirm that my complaint has been resolved to my satisfaction by Hilton Smythe and the comments previously made by me are hereby withdrawn in their entirety.
Hi there, how did the court rule?
Thank you
Shocking company.. Steer clear
And to the above comment were it's stated there (scam artist), how could this possibly be resolved as it's mention the problems started from beginning to end and they haven't sold your business and they tried putting pressure on you from beginning to end to reduce your asking price and then sent you legal bills you even mention a director Liam was involved in chasing you up for immediate payment, which sounds like they were very much threatening towards you, unless you have a time machine how could this be resolved unless they have dropped the threats and chasing on the conditions you say this is resolved, in which case is blackmail, I'm very confused with all this and seems very unethical, which really points to Hilton Smythe being a very bad company.
Am glad I've read this as I've had this company ring up constantly asking me if I want to sell my business they are often very rude.
I have paid this company money after they came out promised to sell my business and haven't had anything back apart from threats for more money or I can pay them a withdrawal fee to leave them can anyone else help or do I have to give them more money, and still no nearer to selling my business.
Hilton Smythe came out to see me promised they would sell my business took a lot off money off me upfront and twelve months later I haven't had one viewing and they never return my calls its a disgrace what's happened and when I've tried cancelling they have threatened me with legal action unless I had over a withdrawal fee off £995 which they never told me about I just hope no one else falls for this scam of a company.