They should be ashamed of themselves .they took my money knowing they were going into liquidation .i saved ages to get the money for my shutters .they lied and cheated .

I had my shutters installed last October and have just had someone come to quote me new windows and it turns out the shutters have not been installed correctly and that my 10 year warranty means nothing! i am now going to have to pay someone to come and fit the shutters correctly! NOT HAPPY…i also paid Colin extra for the 10 years warranty! and i wasn’t informed of the company going bust!…it’s only when i went to call the company i found out! i am still under the 2 year fitting warranty!..one very fed up customer!

What happens to our 10 year warranty now? My less than 1 year old shutters are defective.

Sh÷t show if a company and people. Colin and his div of a secretary Justina.

I share the same experience of many and lost about £1500. I spoke to Colin about 3 days prior to notice of liquidation and he assured me the bespoke shutters were expected soon. I feel lied to and conned by someone I trusted to do the work.

We gave Colin a rave review last year and would like help to find the last shutter he was holding/storing for us whilst our builder rectified the frame. Has anyone any idea of where Universal Shutters stored their goods? We are happy to arrange collection as the 6 shutter doors will fill our 9x7 foot window and they will match the rest of the house. I was expecting the Liquidator to have possession of the items but they are unhelpful in this matter. Any suggestions to 07939 024704 Thank you from Martin Etherington

Have been looking up small claims court and for claims between £1500 and £3000 the court fee is £115 . Maybe something worth pursuing for some people if they can prove that some wrongdoing has occurred with the continuance of asking for cash transfers etc .

I spoke to the liquidator (SFP Restructuring) this morning and a letter should arrive from them this week. Companies House still shows US (Universal Shutters) as active and SFP have not formally been appointed yet. Email SFP your details if you haven't already (I sent our Universal Shutters invoice). If you're owed more that £1k you may want to fill in their 'proof of debt' form that I'm told will arrive in the post with the letter. However, it is typical for unsecured creditors to not get anything back. * Credit card users can rely on section 75 for a refund (point of sale loans to buy goods are also covered by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.) - contrary to what people have been told by US provided loan company. * Debit card users can try chargeback. * If you paid by bank transfer it is tougher. You could explore pursuing Colin directly even though US is/was a limited company (notice and then, if no result, small claims court summons to his address on Companies House). You may have a case that he acted in bad faith, negligent. It’s clear that he knew the situation when he was personally scooping up orders after all the other staff had been laid off. He actively contacted us in January and followed up a quote from ages ago and told a false story about Jason having left the company for personal reasons (we now know that all the staff had already been laid off because the company was in dire straits). It appears, from the reviews below, that Colin switched to not giving people the option to pay by credit card so he could get cleared funds to try and bolster the company's position / pay his salary. Disgusting and immoral.

Absolutely gutted. Placed order in July 2022. Paid half awaiting for shutters. Contact and excuses from the beginning. How are other companies able to fulfil orders while having the same delays. Just so disappointing such dishonest people out there.

I'm annoyed with myself for allowing myself to part with £1750 for shutters that have not arrived, having been told they would be fitted in Feb. We chased in Jan and were told there was a delay but they were on the way and we'd be updated in Feb. Well, we've been updated...... that the company is in liquidation. Apparently 'another' company have agreed to install our shutters for an additional £20/m2, anyone know who this company is? If our shutters are here, can't we just have them and get someone else to fit them?? They are bespoke to our windows so are of little to no value. The last email from Colin was that the liquidator would be in touch regarding this new company. Maybe a good feature for BBC Rogue Traders? I urge you all to contact the BBC.

1) Donna below : leaving a 5* review when you claim to have placed an order that hasn't been fulfilled and the Company has gone out of business is beyond suspicious, so much so that is counter-productive, and bordering on immoral ... (is that better for you?) 2) Colin gave us a line of BS that was extreme, going as far as to say he would be considering premises in Horsham town in the future and taking out bigger advertising at Horsham Football Club. I do the accounts for my wife's business. There's no way he wasn't fully aware that he was in dire trouble when he stood in my daughter's bedroom selling us the product. A DECENT HUMAN BEING would not take money as Bank Transfers in that position, instead using Credit Card transactions so people could at least claim money back. For that reason alone, he is not to be trusted, and I will be keeping a careful out out for his name starting any further Companies !!!!

I wasn't going to post a comment here as it didn't feel like it would do any good (as the company is now in liquidation) and it highlights our stupidity in our selection of company to install shutters in our new home. However, this feels like the only place to highlight how many people have been affected. We placed our order for shutters back in mid November and paid the deposit of over £2k by BACS transfer as this was the only way for payment to be made. Even at my mature age there are lessons learnt and in hindsight we should have insisted on paying the deposit by credit card - I know there are additional charges for the supplier but I don't understand why this would not be the standard practice as it appears that if this had been how all the customers had paid then our financial issues would have been sorted. The second frustration is deciding to support a smaller business rather than one of the big companies that also quoted for the work. Universal Shutters were not the cheapest but we felt we would get the best quality of service and installation by going with them. It's very sad that this desire to help out a smaller business was misplaced and has left us significantly financially impacted. The final frustration at this stage is that there is no clear answer on what the current situation is or next steps, so we have no idea how to proceed from here. As recently as mid January we were assured everything was on track with the shutters which were due to be installed in late February. This implies that the order for our shutters had been placed with the manufacturer in China, that they had been made and potentially already shipped. In which case where are the shutters, who has legal ownership to them - they were obviously made bespoke for our windows so have little value to anyone else. Or has our deposit been taken but no order placed with the manufacturers with the money lost and little or no hope of recovering any of it. We are surely owed clear updates as quickly as possible without having to constantly chase for answers.

DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THEM!!! they know what they are doing. THIS IS NOT A BIG COMPNAY, It is run by 2 professional scammers. Colin and Peter maybe it is the same person who knows. They are scammers and fraudsters! they took £2,150 from me and days later they decided to run off with hard working people's money. DO NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT. They are still active on Companies house, their website is still active to scam new customers! No info about them not trading! Criminals! so REPORT THEM TO YOUR LOCAL POLICE, REPORT THEM TO ACTION FRAUD, REPORT THEM TO COMPANIES HOUSE, ASK YOUR BANK TO GET THE MONEY BACK FROM THEIR Lloyds Bank, GO AFTER WILLAIM COLIN MARTIN, 20-22 WENLOCK ROAD, LONDON, N1 7GU. That is the address on Companies house. GET YOUR MONEY BACK BY ALL MEANS. I AM DOING THAT!!! They will keep doing this to innocent people like they have been doing for a long time. THEY MUST BE AND WIL BE STOPPED!!!

Colin & Universal Shutters have held onto nearly £2,000 of our savings through multiple delays and missed installation dates. There is absolutely no way they didn't see this coming until today and yet instead of being open and honest with people, they decided to take their customers down with them - from what I'm reading here even continuing to add more people into their mess until the very last minute. Shame on you for what you've done here.

I was originally not going to write a review, but with fake 5* reviews flooding in, it's imperative that I speak up. It's unbelievable that people who have lost money are leaving 5* reviews. If you're still planning on writing fake reviews, I suggest lowering them to 3*, as that would be more credible. I spoke with an advisor and we should all reach out to the liquidator company to request to be added to the creditors list. You can find more information on this on gov.uk website and citizensadvice.org.uk search liquidation guidance for creditors (I cannot leave links here). If you were lucky enough to pay by credit card, you may be able to get your money back from your credit card provider. However, if you paid by bank transfer, your chances of getting the money back are slim. The liquidator company will distribute any funds among the creditors, starting with the secured creditors who have assets tied to their credit, followed by the unsecured creditors, which is essentially us. Good luck

We placed the order back in August and paid a £1800 deposit, we have been patience and chasing the order and were led to believe they were going to be installed in late February, surely the order must be on it's way over?! Even if you can't install it, at least let us have what we have bought. I wasn't going to write a review but I empathise with everyone in losing their money & understand their emotional response, especially the women who took out a loan & the mother protecting her daughter. I feel the response from universal have been very defensive & sometimes a bit rude. You may have lost your job, you will get another job, I work in recruitment there are more jobs than people at the moment especially in sales... we have all saved & taken out loans & may not get our money back & don't have anything to show for it. Of course this is personal, people are saying how they feel. apologise unconditionally, do not make excuses & do not make people feel bad when they have lost a huge amount of money. Take ownership of what has happened, stop with the defensive rude replies. We don't care about your frustration & it being brutal... you will probably go set up another blinds company smh

Like other people who have written their recent experience I too am devastated with the loss of money. We only placed our order 4 weeks ago. We handed over £2000. I feel absolutely sick. I do feel really sorry for the people who have lost their jobs, that must be horrendous, but I can’t stop feeling that I have been scammed. Things do not happen overnight and just 4 weeks ago the company must of known things were bad. I just can’t stop crying.

We paid a deposit of £1,097.71 back in August 2022, we then took out a loan which you recommended to us and have been paying monthly instalments. We chased and chased and nothing until recently. This is unfair. We all work very hard for our money. we went with you because we trusted you. Now the lenders are saying we have to pay back the loan even though we have nothing to show for it. How is this fair and legit. We have a baby on the way and have gone down to one wage. This is not possible. Is there anyone that is in a similar situation with the loan? and what are you doing about it?

After a long drawn out weight of six months yes six months I’ve been conned he took half of my money???? I could’ve been told there was a problem 3 months ago,six weeks ago I asked for a colour palette of my order ,you then had the audacity to supplied me with this, at what point were you going to feel guilt, empathy, even.? Beware, foreclosed company

Whilst I feel terrible for the owners and the employees who have lost their business and their jobs, I think it is frankly insensitive to say, like other reviews have, that this is merely a 'setback' for customers that scrimped and saved and now are out of pocket thousands of pounds. Many people may not be able to find a reasonable alternative - I personally don't have thousands of pounds I can simply write off. Unlike the owners, who can, after this liquidation, go on and set up another company. People are well within their rights to rate negatively and be public about it - frankly I do hope the owners do not set up another business. I do not believe that they were fine just at the start of this week and did not know what was coming. It may not be illegal, but it is certainly immoral. If they do set up a company, I think it is fair for others to be warned.