Jobs will go at 'mothballed' Cowley water cooler firm (From Oxford Mail)

Nestle weren't silly, they knew when to offload a sinking ship.

Hard times now - why not drink from the tap?

Was it deliberate?
Powwow Water Company is now in administration, owing millions to it's suppliers and leaving it's employees out of work. However, there is evidence that this may have been a deliberate ploy by company owner Jim Park.

- Owner Jim Park has a reputation for making money out of companies by running them into the ground and having their debt written off, while leaving suppliers out of pocket and employees out of a job

- When Jim Park bought the company from Nestlé last year it was already failing but had £10million of debt owed to it

- That debt has been sold off to Murray White debt collection agency for £800,000. They will now hound customers (often incorrectly due to bad data) in order to collect the money. Murray White is also owned by Jim Park.

- That £800,000 by law has to be paid to Powwow's suppliers and employees.

But where is that money?

Who investigates and serves justice?

and how do we stop this from happening again?

ex-powwow wrote:
Was it deliberate?
Powwow Water Company is now in administration, owing millions to it's suppliers and leaving it's employees out of work. However, there is evidence that this may have been a deliberate ploy by company owner Jim Park.

- Owner Jim Park has a reputation for making money out of companies by running them into the ground and having their debt written off, while leaving suppliers out of pocket and employees out of a job

- When Jim Park bought the company from Nestlé last year it was already failing but had £10million of debt owed to it

- That debt has been sold off to Murray White debt collection agency for £800,000. They will now hound customers (often incorrectly due to bad data) in order to collect the money. Murray White is also owned by Jim Park.

- That £800,000 by law has to be paid to Powwow's suppliers and employees.

But where is that money?

Who investigates and serves justice?

and how do we stop this from happening again?

Best to speak to Deloitte if you believe that there is a problem. If the debt collectors are "hounding" using incorrect data, then that data could only have come from the sales and accounts ledger of Powwow... Which does suggest serious short comings of the staff in that department.

Andrew:Oxford wrote:
"incorrect data ... could only have come from the sales and accounts ledger of Powwow... Which does suggest serious short comings of the staff "

The incorrect data was a result of a bad computer system transfer a few years ago from which the company never recovered- the staff were good people in a bad situation. Lots more on a well publicised blog here: www.ht2.org/ben/?p=1
7

ex-powwow wrote:
Andrew:Oxford wrote: "incorrect data ... could only have come from the sales and accounts ledger of Powwow... Which does suggest serious short comings of the staff " The incorrect data was a result of a bad computer system transfer a few years ago from which the company never recovered- the staff were good people in a bad situation. Lots more on a well publicised blog here: www.ht2.org/ben/?p=1 7

The staff were all good people, I was one of them, and every single one of us wanted to work hard, do a good job and get the company out of the gutter. There were just too many obstacles up in our way and the goalposts moved too many times. We never knew from one day to the next what we were going to be doing.
So many good people have been badly affected by this. Alot of good people are out of a job and out of pocket because of this.

We are very sorry to hear of the redundancies that have resulted from Pow Wow going into administration, a move which has left both employees and customers at a loss.

Most employees were left short of this months salary and no customers received any warning of the move. As an industry we are ashamed of the actions of the previous owners.

At The Water Delivery Company and The Water Cooler Company we have aready hired many ex-Pow Wow drivers and engineers and are now helping to supply Pow Wow customers throughout the London area who have been left without access to bottled water or service for their mains-fed water coolers.

If you are a Pow Wow customer in a similar position, please contact us and one of our team will be happy to help supply you with bottles of spring water immediately, and set up regular deliveries going forward. Likewise if you are a former PowWow employee please contact us as we are hoping to take on as many drivers and engineers to our operation as possible.