[LinuxUser]

Thanks for that link. I'll have to keep it in mind.

[TomSahz]

So they were still accepting/processing orders even though they have 'ceased trading'? If thats true then that is not good enough no matter what the circumstances are.

[LinuxUser]

And just because they've "ceased trading" doesn't mean they can say they won't give refunds. I'm guessing the spurt of cases at the Disputes Tribunal will set off a few red flags, and that they will basically be shut down – and everyone paid as appropriate (after paying any secured liabilities).

[philhar]

OK so here's what I have found out/done,
Yesterday is tried calling them as I too still waiting on a refund and i got "our office is closed till further notice".
I then called my bank to see if I could get it the transaction reversed (have to fill out a disputes form at least two months to process)
So I then called Flo2cash who gave me another number to call them on but no one picked up the phone.
I then found the address of the shop and called a business that was right next to them, the lovely lady said I will go have a look for you (she said "yea yea there right next to us")
And hello nothing there, they have gone with no note no nothing....

I will be looking into this as much as I can as it looks like they have ripped a lot if people off.
please leave a comment if your still waiting on goods/refunds from these guys.

[Chchbuyer]

It is not surprising that this has happened, when the Director, Brian Isaksson, died in November 2011. The two friends that tried to step in to run the business I believe were a Builder and a Publican.
The only address under the Company Office Register is PO Box 1223, Octagon, Dunedin 9054.
As Brian was the one and only Director, I am not sure whether his widow has any responsibility for the debts.
There are a few of us that have approached to Commerce Commission regarding this company at the beginning of December, but as yet they have not been in touch to collect the evidence..... So there were a few of us that were trying to stop this situation from getting worse.
When my refund did come, it was paid out of Brad Robert's own company, not Techbrands.
The receptionist told me before Christmas that she had been made redundant and was leaving at the end of December, so I was surprised to see they had reopened after Christmas.
It is a shame that the Pricespy star rating obviously takes a lot of complaints to move down a star in the scale, as I am sure that so many people have ordered things in good faith going by the star rating and not looking at the forum until they struck trouble with their order. It is a shame that there is not a "Hot" alert on the product page to alert you to check the forum if there has been a lot of negative feedback about a company. However, when I checked the Forum when I ordered my phone in November, all the feedback was great at that time..... I just consider myself one of the lucky ones to have got my refund.
Anyway I think the PO Box listed above will be the only valid address now.
Hopefully everyone has paid by credit card and will be able to get the transaction reversed. Good Luck.

[Huitzilo]

On my side of things, filled out a Chargeback form and a Disputed Transactions form. The Bank said after all the efforts I tried (but I see some others have done a heck of a lot more then what I did) and evidence provided by myself, Lee Chisholm's work (Netsafe Operations Manager), the Commerce Commission (Hayden Nash), and reference to other details found here on pricespy and geekzone, my case got pushed up from the credit card disputes team to the fraud team. I think that the Commerce Commission did eventually get involved with the number of us still/were/are still waiting for our refunds. They chased me up with my evidence, logs, phone calls, emails, so I think they could have been involved somewhere after the 16th of January (last - time I got emails from Hayden Nash from the Commerce Commission).

Anyway was told yesterday to await what the fraud team came up with. The disputes team saw my claim (as most others peoples claims here) as legitimate and informed me not to go to the Disputes Tribunal just yet as the credit card company was going to take all this up. Will receive word sometime after Auckland Anniversary in regards to when the Credit Card company will re-reimburse me while they form some overall challenge to techbrands. I don't know how it all works, but happy that I'll be getting my money back at least.

[LinuxUser]

Huitzilo, on 28 January 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

On my side of things, filled out a Chargeback form and a Disputed Transactions form. The Bank said after all the efforts I tried (but I see some others have done a heck of a lot more then what I did) and evidence provided by myself, Lee Chisholm's work (Netsafe Operations Manager), the Commerce Commission (Hayden Nash), and reference to other details found here on pricespy and geekzone, my case got pushed up from the credit card disputes team to the fraud team. I think that the Commerce Commission did eventually get involved with the number of us still/were/are still waiting for our refunds. They chased me up with my evidence, logs, phone calls, emails, so I think they could have been involved somewhere after the 16th of January (last - time I got emails from Hayden Nash from the Commerce Commission).

Anyway was told yesterday to await what the fraud team came up with. The disputes team saw my claim (as most others peoples claims here) as legitimate and informed me not to go to the Disputes Tribunal just yet as the credit card company was going to take all this up. Will receive word sometime after Auckland Anniversary in regards to when the Credit Card company will re-reimburse me while they form some overall challenge to techbrands. I don't know how it all works, but happy that I'll be getting my money back at least.

It's great to hear that the Commerce Commission and fraud team have got involved – things will probably go better for others, and it might just be the reason they have shut down.

[zfh10]

Hi all,
I joined the forum just so I could comment! :-)

I bought a camera last year through camerabrands.co.nz, a sister company. I love it but recently my camera has started playing up, and occasionally takes very dim photos unless I force it out of it's spazz with manual settings. Clearly a manufacturer fault. But now I have no warranty with the company I bought it off. :-(

It's worth about $600. Is it worth trying to get it fixed somewhere? (He asks hopefully)

For those people yelling FRAUD, I don't think so. It doesn't sound like there is any intent here, the owner DIED, it just sounds like an utter shambles trying to sort out his company. Clearly, the people appointed to sort out the mess were friends of friends and had no clue. It's just a bit unfortunate all round. Hopefully those people waiting for refunds get it soon.

[Huitzilo]

Hi ZF,

I don't see this as fraud and like you I feel for what the rest of the staff of techbrands have probably gone through. However after talking to the banks and Commerce Commission today, they still have questions and queries they were wanting to address. But with the sole owner passing on, and the continuation of running the site and trading with quite a lot of customers naturally this has gone up to another level. As I said, I went through the processes and channels with the intent of getting my money back and sadly with the number of people who have been caught up in this, and from what I was told by the Commerce Commission today, the generation of disputed transactional reports and charge backs has caught the attention of banks/credit card companies. Thus the reasoning behind the fraud and transactional disputes teams getting involved.

To end, yes I see this as all unfortunate. But in hind sight it probably would have been a lot better if payments were refunded or/and the site locked out by not taking any further orders (before the Commerce Commission had to step in and advise Techbrands of this). By continuing operations during Nov 2011 - Jan 2012, accepting payments for stock they didn't have, trying to run a business which was way over their heads, then providing several apologies and a series of ETA dates for the arrival of stock which never led to fruition ... unfortunately I think they may have a bit to answer for.

Regards

[LinuxUser]

Yes, that is about what I was going to say. With the exception that refusing refunds unless going through the Disputes Tribunal is really a bit disgusting, and is little better than outright fraud.

[TomSahz]

Tech Brands has been made inactive on Pricespy therefore their prices no longer show. The delay was due to communication issues with the NZ and Swedish branches by the Admins.

If you are awaiting refunds or have placed orders then contact the Commerce Commission, http://www.theorb.org.nz/ , or your credit card company as mentioned above.

[toxic293]

In a nutshell my involvement was as a friend to Brian, the deceased Director and Shareholder, was to take over the running of the business. First thing first was to knuckle down and figure out the business model. I did this as a favour to the family and have done ever since, unpaid.

I regret to advise that Tech Brands will be going into liquidation. They have stopped taking orders and the bank accounts have been frozen by the bank due to the death of Brian. As he was the only one that could cease trading legally, it has taken this long to shut to company down. Unfortunately we do not have access to refunds and the bank isn't honouring any transactions until such time as a liquidator is appointed who then takes control of the funds again and from what I understand, they deal with all creditors such as yourself. This could take some time until it is known who the liquidator is.

Liquidation can happen in 1 of 3 ways. 1) A creditor can apply to the high court to have a company put into liquidation in an effort to recover funds. 2) A company director can put their own company into voluntary liquidation because they are trading insolvent or 3) in this case where the director is deceased, only the executor of the estate to carry this out once they have received the death certificate. Due to the circumstances surrounding Brians death, the death certificate was only issued to the solicitor last week. The solicitor now makes an application to the high court to become the executor of the estate.

Only then can the next step be taken to appoint a liquidator, if a liquidator wishes to take it on.

Its all legal mate.

I would like to make it clear that I am not a shareholder in this company. Clarification on this can be viewed by going to: http://www.business....mpanies/3028260. I am simply here to clean up the mess.

I apologise that at this time I cannot give you any further information for you going forward.

Regards,

Brad

[LinuxUser]

Thankyou for clarifying what is happening (and has happened). I hope everything is sorted out soon. And now that I understand the curcumstances, I wish to apologise to you and any others involved for anything untoward that has been said – I see now that you could not do anything other than try to keep the business going as best as possible, which I'm sure you have done.

[zfh10]

Hi Brad,
all the best to you in sorting out a difficult situation.

A bit of a long shot, but my camera has developed a bit of a fault, as I said above. If I tell you the date I bought it, would it be possible for you to dig out the details of where it was imported from? I could then look into the warranty independently perhaps. But if you're swimming in paper and files, forget it :-)

[kingi 28]

toxic293, on 31 January 2012 - 07:57 PM, said:

In a nutshell my involvement was as a friend to Brian, the deceased Director and Shareholder, was to take over the running of the business. First thing first was to knuckle down and figure out the business model. I did this as a favour to the family and have done ever since, unpaid.

I regret to advise that Tech Brands will be going into liquidation. They have stopped taking orders and the Brbank accounts have been frozen by the bank due to the death of Brian. As he was the
only one that could cease trading legally, it has taken this long to shut to company down. Unfortunately we do not have access to refunds and the bank isn't honouring any transactions until such time as a liquidator is appointed who then takes control of the funds again and from what I understand, they deal with all creditors such as yourself. This could take some time until it is known who the liquidator is.

Liquidation can happen in 1 of 3 ways. 1) A creditor can apply to the high court to have a company put into liquidation in an effort to recover funds. 2) A company director can put their own company into voluntary liquidation because they are trading insolvent or 3) in this case where the director is deceased, only the executor of the estate to carry this out once they have received the death certificate. Due to the circumstances surrounding Brians death, the death certificate was only issued to the solicitor last week. The solicitor now makes an application to the high court to become the executor of the estate.

Only then can the next step be taken to appoint a liquidator, if a liquidator wishes to take it on.

Its all legal mate.

I would like to make it clear that I am not a shareholder in this company. Clarification on this can be viewed by going to: http://www.business....mpanies/3028260. I am simply here to clean up the mess.

I apologise that at this time I cannot give you any further information for you going forward.

Regards,

Brad

Brad
i think i have been ripped off only hope it never happens to you

Edited by LinuxUser, 02 February 2012 - 08:38 AM.

[DianeC]

Hi

Do not do business with Tech Brands. We ordered $3,500 worth of product in early January 2012 to be told it would be delivered on 31st January. We are still waiting. On trying to contact them both by email and phone there is a note on their website to say that they are currently not taking orders. Tech Brands is associated with another company The Bargin Bay which is now in liquidation or something like that so my advice to anyone DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THESE PEOPLE.

[LinuxUser]

Well, no surprise that the other one is in liquidation, as it was also owned by the same person – Tech Brands Pacific is all but in liquidation too, according to an earlier post.

[LinuxUser]

I think all this "Don't buy from them" etc. would be best to stop. You can't buy from them now even if you try to, and all will be dealt with in due time. There's nothing anyone can do about anything except wait. I don't want to lock this thread, as I want to hear how it all goes in the end.

So please don't post any more warnings about them, but you are welcome to post how things are going.

LinuxUser

[selina]

I too have been waiting since early December order was placed for my smartphone. Today I have lodged a dispute with my bank and hopefully it will be sorted out from there. I am sad to hear about the company going into liquidation as the people I have dealt with in customer service including Kristina have been lovely but... we weren't donating to a charity, we were buying products. A real shame.

[kiwipeso]

I've been waiting since January 13th for a smartphone, I want to know why they accepted my order if there was no way they could fulfil it. I didn't wish to donate to funeral expenses, I wanted a phone from a new zealand company. I should have just ordered from amazon and I would have had it by now. I'm not happy at all about this, because now I have to save again for another smartphone.
I really don't like having to pay twice for just one thing, especially when it costs seven hundred dollars.

I have filed a refund claim with my bank, but even if I do get a refund, the bank will take a cut out of the refund because I authorised the payment.
I'm really annoyed by this unprofessional behaviour, surely the widow should have authorised an employee to act as the director if they wanted to trade out of this unpleasant situation.

[Chchbuyer]

See Stuff.co.nz for news article regarding Tech Brands Pacific.

[LinuxUser]

kiwipeso, on 09 February 2012 - 09:29 AM, said:

I've been waiting since January 13th for a smartphone, I want to know why they accepted my order if there was no way they could fulfil it. I didn't wish to donate to funeral expenses, I wanted a phone from a new zealand company. I should have just ordered from amazon and I would have had it by now. I'm not happy at all about this, because now I have to save again for another smartphone.
I really don't like having to pay twice for just one thing, especially when it costs seven hundred dollars.

I have filed a refund claim with my bank, but even if I do get a refund, the bank will take a cut out of the refund because I authorised the payment.
I'm really annoyed by this unprofessional behaviour, surely the widow should have authorised an employee to act as the director if they wanted to trade out of this unpleasant situation.

No, because a company is a legal entity (only shareholders, and those they authorise, have any authority), and all directors must be authorised by the shareholders. There was only one shareholder, who was also the director, so there was no way for anyone to do anything. Also, such changes must go through the Companies office, so it wasn't possible for him to verbally approve any such thing before his death. And it is doubtful that the website could be changed either – most likely, a web design company was responsible for all maintenance, and they would require proper authorisation, which would not be able to be provided.

Chchbuyer, on 09 February 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

See Stuff.co.nz for news article regarding Tech Brands Pacific.

Thanks. The link is http://www.stuff.co....ter-trader-dies

[afamilymember1982]

I would just like to make a few points as a family member of Brian Isaksson. Brad Roberts makes a comment here that he has made in many of his comments regarding Tech Brands saying that he was "helping the family" he was not. He was Helping Brians widow. The rest of the family have had no contact with Brad except for meeting him at the time of Brians funeral. We have also had pretty much no contact with [Brian's widow] due to her seeming to be unable to be contacted. I also saw a comment about Tech Brands not being able to do refunds due to the fact that Brian had done them and not left an info on how to do them, but I see that ChChbuyer has had a refund so they must have been able to. They may not be able to right now due to liquidation proceedings but I would hope the money will be refunded to people ASAP..Also as far as I know Brian set up the whole website so they would not have had to go through anyone else to close it down, they have now closed the website down so why couldn’t they have done it earlier? I hope that all the info being given by those at Tech Brands is true as some of things being said don’t seem believable to me. I REALLY hope that people get their money back, I can’t understand why they wouldn’t as the money has been paid to techbrands and no products been purchased so the money should be there to be refunded as far as I can see.

Edited by LinuxUser, 13 February 2012 - 12:57 PM.
Removed personal name

[LinuxUser]

afamilymember1982, on 13 February 2012 - 12:14 PM, said:

I would just like to make a few points as a family member of Brian Isaksson. Brad Roberts makes a comment here that he has made in many of his comments regarding Tech Brands saying that he was "helping the family" he was not. He was Helping Brians widow. The rest of the family have had no contact with Brad except for meeting him at the time of Brians funeral. We have also had pretty much no contact with [Brian's widow] due to her seeming to be unable to be contacted. I also saw a comment about Tech Brands not being able to do refunds due to the fact that Brian had done them and not left an info on how to do them, but I see that ChChbuyer has had a refund so they must have been able to. They may not be able to right now due to liquidation proceedings but I would hope the money will be refunded to people ASAP..Also as far as I know Brian set up the whole website so they would not have had to go through anyone else to close it down, they have now closed the website down so why couldn’t they have done it earlier? I hope that all the info being given by those at Tech Brands is true as some of things being said don’t seem believable to me. I REALLY hope that people get their money back, I can’t understand why they wouldn’t as the money has been paid to techbrands and no products been purchased so the money should be there to be refunded as far as I can see.

That was, according to him, paid out by Brad's company, not Tech Brands Pacific.

With regards to the website, I have no knowledge of anything directly related, but most people would not have the know-how to shut it down, and employing someone to do it could be impossible (they can't know how legitimate the request is, so it would be fair to refuse the job), and would definitely be reasonably expensive.

[suem]

:)Been following this thread for a while as we have been in similar situation...phone order accepted in December, lots of excuses and no joy only to find company had ceased trading. As a last ditch attempt filled out a disputed transaction form and money refunded within the week of the form being submitted. Try it...I was pessimistic but it worked.

[zenocider]

Got reply from my bank. I made purchase on 07/12/2011 for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play White which was never delivered of course.
Asked for refund on 03/01/2012 which also never made, filled out the Credit Card Chargeback dispute form on 30/01/2012 (before 60 days from transaction) with $15 charge for processing & finally got my answer. Bank will credit back to my credit card account today. I nealy gave up on this one but looks like it works. Hope this helps.

[selina]

Westpac refunded within two weeks which was brilliant. Ended up going to Dick Smith as close to me and so easy to return to if I have any problems. They didn't publicise the special $20 Vodafone recharge voucher that was also included in this weekend's special on Samsung Galaxy S2s so it was a nice bonus

[mezia]

toxic293, on 31 January 2012 - 07:57 PM, said:

In a nutshell my involvement was as a friend to Brian, the deceased Director and Shareholder, was to take over the running of the business. First thing first was to knuckle down and figure out the business model. I did this as a favour to the family and have done ever since, unpaid.

I regret to advise that Tech Brands will be going into liquidation. They have stopped taking orders and the bank accounts have been frozen by the bank due to the death of Brian. As he was the only one that could cease trading legally, it has taken this long to shut to company down. Unfortunately we do not have access to refunds and the bank isn't honouring any transactions until such time as a liquidator is appointed who then takes control of the funds again and from what I understand, they deal with all creditors such as yourself. This could take some time until it is known who the liquidator is.

Liquidation can happen in 1 of 3 ways. 1) A creditor can apply to the high court to have a company put into liquidation in an effort to recover funds. 2) A company director can put their own company into voluntary liquidation because they are trading insolvent or 3) in this case where the director is deceased, only the executor of the estate to carry this out once they have received the death certificate. Due to the circumstances surrounding Brians death, the death certificate was only issued to the solicitor last week. The solicitor now makes an application to the high court to become the executor of the estate.

Only then can the next step be taken to appoint a liquidator, if a liquidator wishes to take it on.

Its all legal mate.

I would like to make it clear that I am not a shareholder in this company. Clarification on this can be viewed by going to: http://www.business....mpanies/3028260. I am simply here to clean up the mess.

I apologise that at this time I cannot give you any further information for you going forward.

Regards,

Brad

Hi Brad,

Have there been any recent developments? my partner who bought me a phone for Christmas which as you can guess never showed, hasnt been succesful with the credit card company refunding him. would like to know if there is any news of late, due to the circumstances i would prefer not going to the disputes tribunal, in addition to Brian's passing i think it would be a waste of time (for lack of less harsh phrase) and just want my partner to get his money back

thanks for any new info