After being cold called by David Cooke from Phoenix Business Sale and having several meetings with him face to face I
decided to go ahead and let them market my business. David came across as a very helpful and honourable person but to my naivety this turned out not to be so.
The verbal agreement between David and I was that I pay a refundable £1000 VAT and if the business at the end of the 26 weeks was not sold I would receive a full refund. I signed a contract for 26 weeks to which we had no enquiries. I felt it was time to try a different approach.
I called David Cooke regarding my decision to not market my business after the 26 weeks had expired, to which he replied all I had to do was send a letter to their head office (recorded delivery)
Within 3 days we had a very aggressive letter demanding £3000 VAT which was to be paid within the short space of 2 days. Clause 12 of their agreement. This clause 12 was not verbally explained to me at all in all of our meetings.
The contract to which I had signed stated at the bottom that everything in the contract had been explained in our meetings
and at no time was the mention of £3000 VAT to be paid ever mentioned.
I called David Cooke for him to shed some light on the situation, to which he denied all knowledge of our verbal agreement and denied ever mentioning the initial £1000 being refundable. At this point I knewthat something was seriously wrong. I therefore acquired legal advice.
After searching the Internet I found I was not the only person that had been scammed by Phoenix Business Sales or David Cooke. I took it upon myself to write this report to prevent this kind of thing happening to any other unfortunate trust worthy business owners.
For anyone else who feels they have been scammed by these dishonourable business merchants then please don't hesitate to contact me on 0xxx xx xx 00, alternatively send me an email at
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