AMajor wrote: I have actually met them Shaun - British people who won and Add-on Partner award at Xerocon last week. Sarah lives in London.
Hi Angie,
Please don't misconstru what I was saying there.
There is a UK company with UK directors but the fact that it is run from a mailbox hides any link to the true busines that lies behind it?
The virtual company is a phenomenon of the 21st century and includes companies such as Amazon where one believes that they are dealing with one company where the reality is that one is working with a whole network of interlinked companies.
I was simply saying that the company that you deal with would seem to be a front for another organisation which one assumes can only become viable by utilising offshore resources.
Thats not even saying that the offshore resources will do a bad job. My concern there was purely down to the steps that the receipts go through in order to get to their final destination and the opportnities that such presents for client documentation to go astray.
Personally I would not use this sort of service but everyone is free to make their own decisions based upon their businesses attitude to risk combined with freely available information on the people that we choose to do business with.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I was simply saying that the company that you deal with would seem to be a front for another organisation which one assumes can only become viable by utilising offshore resources.
Hi Shaun,
Ok, I'm worried now. i can understand what you're saying about the risk of data going astray.
What am I missing? where do you find out that they are a front for another organisation?
this goes back to the original point that I was making about UK representation.
If you deal with a company in the UK and can get your data securely to them then I suspect that they will use a courier service such as DHL or UPS rather than entrusting documents to royal mail.
The information that you need is that once your documentation goes to the Mailboxes etc. mail box how does it then get securely from there to its final destination.
The closest equivalent that I can think of to this service is translation companies.
You give a document to a translation company who then fax it to the relevant country to be translated and returned. Thats a good secure way of doing things.
The key is where do the documents get scanned? Where do the documents ends up?
I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with offering services in this way but as part of the decision making process one needs to know the facts rather than there being a smokescreen between the front end that one deals with and the reality happening behind the scenes.
In the day job I could, but am not allowed to, mention quite a few situation where I have told clients the truth for every question that they asked but did not pursue the fact that they were not asking the right questions.
I would not have allowed the questions to go unasked if I in anyway felt that the client might be disadvantaged by not knowing the information but its weapon one in the consultants arsenal that clients make assumptions where realities can be completely different.
On the question about how do you check companies out.
If ever you want to check out companies just go here :
http://companycheck.co.uk/
For directors go here :
http://company-director-check.co.uk/
You can go directly between the two websites by click a company that a director is part of or clicking a director in the companies screens.
For any address just do a goodle search on it and look who else is in the same building.
Many companies with suite in front of the address just means that it is a mail box (Mailboxes etc. call their virtual addresses suites)
Peasie uses Duedil rather than the above links. Information is pretty much the same as it all originally comes from companies house.
hth,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
