News Tiny customers won't get money back.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/07/29/Tiny_No_Money/

 

it's not about being 'bigger creditors', it's about security. Banks will typically take a mortgage over pretty much everything the company owns, which on insolvency can be sold to pay the debt to the bank.

Similarly, suppliers may have a 'retention of title' clause in their agreement, so it is probable that Time/Tiny didn't own certain components until they had paid for them, even if they had been delivered. So the suppliers get to take their stock back where the debt hadn't been settled.

Next there are 'preferential creditors', which basically means the staff have the right to any wages owing.

And finally, as you say, the unsecured creditors share what (if anything) is left.

Unfortunately, until your PC is boxed up ready to be shipped, it is unlikely to be sufficiently identifiable for you to be able to claim it is yours, so you will not be able to protect it from the general pool of assets to be sold to pay the higher priority creditors.

It does seem unjust, but sadly it is the law, and at least it's consistently applied.

 

At least we bought a Time computer 8 years ago and the warrenty ran out 5 years ago!

 

If you pay by CC your ok though.

When the pc manufacturer that I used to work for went bust 18months ago, it left quite a few people with pc's ordered but not deliverd. 9 months after it got shut down the courts still hadnt decided if the money shuold be returned to these customers.

 

Ah - I stand corrected by my learned collegue...

 

Real shame for the customers and staff but tbh it was going to happen eventually, unless they started selling products of reasonable quality and treating customers correctly.

The general public has become a lot more computer savvy in the past 5 years and a good handful know whats good and bad, also neither Time or Tiny have come across well in the past few years, if you ever watched a couple of episodes of "Watchdog" youd normally hear about another story on there.

A friend used to work for Time and he said pretty much all the parts were used/reconditioned and computers were just slapped together as they were under pressure to get things done and out the door. I dont like Dell (or any other off the shelf systems) but they seem pretty professional about things, build reasonable systems and actually give customers support.

My view is that its just an evolution of the industry, if a company aint doing a proper job theyl pay for it in the end, it can only improve the industry as the crap gets weeded out. Saying that tho it wouldnt be good if it was just the big boys playing the game or youd have the scenario where there is only one major company that has 90%+ of the market and the smaller ones showing promise get bought out or just cant compete, Mr B Gates *cough*.

My dad bought a Time in 97' for christmas, it was our first windows pc in the house (had an Amiga 500 before that ), I was well excited but kinda annoyed as I said to my dad before christmas "if you ever buy a pc dont get one of them" as I knew they were pretty pooh from all the storys.

Anyways, life goes on...

 

Don't forget, mclean, in that preferred customers you have any outstanding bond debts!