On Tuesday, ASIC revealed that on March 17 it had banned Ian Christiansen, a former director of Bill Express, from managing a company for five years. I suspect that the same fate would have befallen Ian’s brother Hal had he been alive today. Fairfax papers have the story. No news yet on the fate of Julian Little, the Bill Express director who managed the relationship with newsagency.
Newsagents sunk more than fifty million dollars into Bill Express, signing five year agreements.
There were complaint of false and misleading information being used to get newsagents to sign these long term agreements. Nothing ever came of complaints about tactics used in the field to get newsagents to sign what we now know to be unfair and grossly expensive five year agreements.
Bill Express was promoted to newsagents by the ANF. The ANF got a commission from Bill Express. The ANF Board endorsed Bill Express in 2003 with lavish promotion and support, having done no due diligence on the company or its offer. In 2008, when Bill Express was collapsing, the then ANF Board continued to support Bill Express, providing advice to newsagents to continue to pay for Bill Express equipment without seeking legal advice as to the appropriateness of this advice.
The behavior of the ANF in 2003 and in 2008 damaged the organisation. The ANF today is not the ANF of 2003 or 2008 thankfully for newsagents.
Go into the back room of many newsagencies and you will find some of the old Bill Express hardware stored away.
As ASIC and others work through their processes and put the Bill Express mess to bed, maybe newsagents can too. It is truly time to move on. the past is the past.
i want to send them my storage bills of $20 /day with discount of 10% or 1 year free rent. where can I send the bill? 🙂
Mark
when can we dump the equipment at the local tip please ?
i dumped mine 6 months ago, but pretty sure i know the spot i dumped it at the local tip if they ever come looking for it, i will give them a mud map of the area 🙂
i can’t believe people have not thrown it out yet
Hopefully by the term “dump at the local tip”, Newsagents still angry about Bill Express really mean “leaving at the local electronic recycling centre”!!
Some of the gear may be worth hanging on to. For example, the equipment commonly stored under the front counter often contained an ADSL modem and a network switch, which could come in handy if you ever need to replace one in the shop, or expand your network. The monitor and TV screen are often reusable as well.
Mark, I know you may not publish this, but I would suggest then commenting yourself with similar advice
Yes, many newsagents have already done this – years ago. Reused the screen, the network switch etc.