A couple of days ago, our learned friend Jason Bennison a.k.a. Schedule12 on BHF posted the following announcement on BHF.

Company? What company?

Let’s not forget (he obviously HAS forgotten) that he actually resigned his position as a director and appointed his mum on the 16th of January, not last year. But “the company” in question was Xlaw Limited, which he has also applied to strike off. DWB (a.k.a. Dealing with Bailiffs) was only ever a website, not a company.

Jason Bennison applies to strike off Xlaw Limited

Blast from the past

The above text is reminiscent of the kind of wording fledgling businesses would include on their websites in the early days of the internet, when everyone was offering something related to “new media” or the “new economy”, whatever that may have meant. Those were the days when Bennison made this other post, originally captured by David Lindley when he was writing Bennison’s unauthorised biography on his blogs.

So, nearly 20 years ago, Bennison was developing commercial software for the legal profession, employed by a London law firm, yet he was also a Kleeneze rep! When you consider that, back in ’99, software developers were worth their weight in gold, it’s hard to imagine an IT contractor having to moonlight with Kleeneze!

Back to the present

Looks like, where Bennison is concerned, nothing has changed in 20 years. Around a year ago, he was posting on BHF about some software he had allegedly written, to automate the process of will writing and legal drafting. He obviously wasn’t telling the truth in ’99, nor is he telling the truth now. Dealing With Bailiffs is a website where Bennison has compiled a mishmash of information regarding enforcement, put together some non user friendly checklists and bolted on a form to request payment for his phone consultations, all in a style very much reminiscent of websites from the 1990s.

Why would a venture capitalist be interested in it? It is simply a website, not a business. Anyone can throw a website together, but a website isn’t really a business. This is something a lot of people found out the hard way at the turn of the millennium. Such is the nature of enforcement that it’s not an area that lends itself to repeat business. Most people who have had the misfortune of dealing with bailiffs will try to avoid making the same mistakes and deal with their debts before they reach that stage. As an adviser on bailiff matters, if you’ve done your job properly, you don’t expect people to come back to you in the future.

The usual inconsistencies

As is so typical of our learned friend Bennison, his posts, apart from making very little sense, are also full of inconsistencies. He started the third paragraph of his announcement with the following:

I am no longer a director, downgraded to the rank of a salaried employee.

But then, in the next paragraph, he says:

If I cannot secure a position in the company then I will take early retirement and work in bailiff advice services a voluntary capacity through the forum.

So is he an employee or has he not secured a position in the company?

Ownership matters

We have all seen how he denies owning BHF even though the domain is registered in his name. He ends his post with the following:

The forum remains unchanged. I’ve never owned it even though I registered its domain name. I built the forum for Amy, an ex-administrator of Legal Beagles, and operated it for the last six years…

Really? In that case, why did he personally take action against Nominet over the alleged “abusive registration” of a domain similar to his website? Let’s not forget that it was this dispute that landed him with a £26,000 costs order! Surely if the forum is not his, he would not have gone to such lengths!

Some venture!

His next post says:

Funny he should say that a venture capital fund does not give out funds to people with no business acumen, in which case, they wouldn’t give him the time of day… So a venture capitalist was just “hit with bailiffs”. That’s not possible, if Bennison knows the first thing about bailiffs, it’s that they can only be used to enforce an order from the court. For private debts, the creditor must obtain a judgment (CCJ) against the debtor before he can let the dogs loose on him. This sounds like yet another one of his wild fantasies. There is an ocean of difference between solving a bailiff problem and having a viable business to sell!

Yet more fairy tales…

He ends his post saying he gets not only a house and a company car with a driver, but also flights between the UK and the Philippines every 8 weeks! And that includes his “family” as well… So how does it work? Does he fly to the UK every 8 weeks and then stays here for a few days, before flying back to the Philippines with his family, who then come back in time for school? It’s hard to see how the arrangement would work, but then when he lies, he never gives it a second thought.

Despite this being the thread where he is announcing having sold Dealing with Bailiffs to a venture capitalist from the City (of London), he still has, in his signature, the links to the site in question! So is he now advertising the business on BHF, which is a site he owns but doesn’t run (or is it the other way round?), on behalf of the new owner? If so, why does it still say “Phone consultation with me”?