I knew it was over when...
I decided to trust a bank.

Allow me to explain...

A few years ago I started to dabble in commercial signwriting. You know the sort. Any bloke who buys himself a van when he becomes a plumber and thinks, "I might get extra jobs if use my lovely new van to advertise the fact that I am a tradesman," would come to somebody like me to transform the blank canvas into a work of art. Ashamedly though I have done my fair share of those horrific WordArt style adverts (but always at the clients wish, not my own.)

I started out by buying all the equipment I needed with money I borrowed from my parents. After a few mishaps and scalpel-related trips to the hospital I started to make quite a tidy profit peddling my wares online. The premise was simple. I was asked to produce a design, which I mocked up using my signwriting software and one of those cd's you can buy for a fiver containing vehicle templates. When they give the go ahead the work is cut out on vinyl and prepared for sticking to the van. It is then bundled up and posted. I was able to make about 50% profit on every job I did, so I decided to move into doing it full-time, quitting my dead end job as I went.

I was renting a storage container from a newly opened container storage company (before the days when it bacame popular to throw everything into a big warehouse like though horrdi companies that are springing up everywhere now). For a reasonable sum, I was able to buy this container outright, without paying ground rent, and use it as an office, complete with electricity. All told, after about 2 years I had built up about £20k in assets (which were almost all paid for)

Then I made my big mistake.

I was told I would be best served by opening a business bank account, being as I was almost making enough money to provoke VAT registration, so I tootled off to my local bank to set one up. There I was given an interview with a "business startups consultant" who offered to show me some of the tricks of the trade. He showed me how if I remortgaged my "office" and set up a business bank account, I could offset the interest I would pay on the mortgage by forfeiting the interest on my business account. He crunched some numbers and showed me that by doing so I could remortgage for £12k, reduce my outgoings by paying off the loan I had to buy supplies, and have a few grand left over to start selling in a big way. Yay methinks, this sounds awesome. At no point did I hear any alarm bells.

He also put me in touch with a few trade magazines where I was able to take out ads, among a myriad of other "freebies" included, all with 18 months free business banking. I couldnt sign fast enough. Within 24 hours I had the funds and set to work.

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Passage of time
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About 12 months later, the business was doing quite well. I had contracts with a few local and almost national companies to do the signs for their new vehicles, and even bought a company van to work on the move. I was in high spirits. Casually one morning I logged on to check my business bank account online to see how much lovely money I had to spend.

The first thing that struck me was the balance was red. Odd as I had put in over 2 grands worth of cheques the week before and hadnt spent anything. So I delve deeper. It seemed that for the past 2 months the companies I had contracts with had been bouncing payments they made to me. I was oblivious to this fact (my 2nd big mistake) as I had been able to spend on my company card freely. I checked my bumpf that came from the bank and had been signed up for a service that called me when payments are forfeited. But no such calls came. I called my consultant on the special number I was given for emergancies, only to be told that he was on holiday for 2 weeks and I would have to wait till he got back. Brilliant.

So there I was, staring at a black hole the size of the mortgage I had taken out a year previous. I was clutching the van keys so hard they left an imprint in my hand that didnt fade for 4 hours. I turned on the TV and the 2 words I heard first, before light had even adorned the screens surface...

Credit Crunch.

Turns out, all the companies I had accounts with had gone to the wall in the past week, and as I hadnt sent a written request for payment for work I had already done, the administrators told me I couldnt get anything back.

Over the next month or so, a couple more of my regular clients went too. As did my main supplier. And me? I had already modified the van to fit my equipment into (I had bought a second machine so I had a spare for the van) I couldnt get even 1/3 of what I had spent on it when I sold it. And since I was so far in the red, my advertising had dried up, so I couldnt get work.

After selling up everything I had, I still owed £3k, plus 99% of the mortgage. It seems that because I had gained significant interest on my business account for only 11 months, I lost my entitlement to an offset mortgage, so tha bank piled the last years interest back on top, even though I had already lost out on interest in my business account. Luckily I had the foresight to register as Limited Liability, so I could walk away without going bankrupt myself. I did however, lose the "office" I bought out of my own pocket, along with a lot of personal stuff that I was told to register with the business; laptop, mobile etc.

I am still unemployed after 6 months, living off what I can from my savings (after having poured most of it into the business to begin with) facing the prospect of even more time sitting at home with nothing to do. I can't even sleep properly now. All I do is watch Frasier reruns on TV and lurk around on B3ta.

Credit crunch? I feel like I've been royally shafted up the tradesman's entrance by the might of the British Banking System.

So the moral of the story is this kids; don't trust banks. All they want to do is watch you burn. And fuck you over. Bigtime.

Apologies for length etc. They never did.
(Big Jimmy, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 2:15, 5 replies)

Sorry to hear that dude
I hope you get back on the bike. Click for, well, bravery.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 2:28, closed)

I know it's a cliche but ...
sorry to hear it Jimmy.

Really sorry. You're one of the very people the government ought to be courting. Folks with balls and discipline enough to open a new business without being up to your eyeballs in debt.

And then what do they do? Remove any sense of conscience or consequence from the banker so they are tripping over their own greed to lend you money on terms that are basely unfair.

Hope something better comes your way. I really do.
(Que?, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 7:47, closed)

fucking hell
great reward for all your hard work. i'm surprised you haven't gone postal in the bank, i would have done!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 9:52, closed)

Well I would have done...
But after I called my "consultant" and told him I was going to rip off his head and spit down his neck, he told me he would call the police if I stepped foot in the bank again. I thought I'd be better off not making the evening news for trying to behead a man with a bread knife.
(Big Jimmy, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 15:22, closed)

You've shown you can run a business.
Now you just need to watch for the upturn and be the first back in. You've been forced to the wall by the actions of others. You now know what to do in the future to stop them doing it again. Presumably, your reputation is still fine as *you* didn't mess anyone about - they screwed you over.
(dxg, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 18:14, closed)