anyone else affected by problems with Offpod?

[Yellowboats]

Hi all
Last year we came across a thread on Mumsnet chatting about what seemed an amazing annexe / extension company called Off POD. After much deliberation we decided to go for them and subsequently discovered the hard way that they were a bunch of con artists. They did a terrible job, were chaotic and zero project management, infights amongst the builders, and took our money without finishing and didn't get it through building regs and repeatedly lied and gas lit the situation whenever we raised any problems. The Director, Thomas IHUARULA,
went from all sweetness, to pushy and nasty and was clearly incompetent and had no understanding of planning and building regulations.. I don't believe he had any intention of getting building regs signed off. Stopped returning our emails. It was a truly awful and stressful experience and I feel like we lost a year of our lives. And needless to say, the thread on here which had loads of initial positive comments was taken down as soon as people started complaining and sharing the same experience. I think placing false chats on here was part of their tactics to lure people in. It was truly stressful. We are not wealthy people and it makes me so cross they these people took all our life savings and haven't been investigated and seem to get away with it. Looking at trustpilot - so many people's lives have been ruined. So I'm reaching out on here to see if anyone want to collectively take this further with the fraud police? They are operating again under The Granny Annexe Company. ( Filed as ANX BUILDS LTD
in companies house). They are literally using the same social media channels to make themselves look established. To see for yourselves, go to their facebook page and click on their company name, for more details/. Then select Transparency and Privacy policy and you can see the previous name which was of course OFF POD! Before Offpod they operated as SFS BUILDS LTD (15702824)
and H&J MILLS SERVICES LTD (14305430). and you can see the same historic photos of builds being used again. Every year or two, they run up masses of debt, take people's money and disappear and rebrand.

I remember some of the posts/threads on this - didn’t they go bust and start up as a new name ( Granny Annexe or similar)?.

Trustpilot concurs with you.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/off-pod.co.uk

The new company started shortly after the old company ceased trading without filing accounts.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15919183

It looks like it lasted little more than a year from incorporation.

Granny Annexe company here:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16834845

The real problem is the ease with failing builders can close down and reopen next day swapping around some local director names. I know of a builder in my area who has done the same for years. Decent builders won’t work with him and complain about the ease with which he can close and open companies, leaving debts and incomplete/poor quality builds behind him.

I use the companies house link to check the age of any company I deal with for the first time. Its worth looking at directors’ history but the dodgy builder I know of passes the directorships around the family. At least one had his elderly mother as the director of the company.

Thanks @C8H10N4O2 and totally agree! there's so much more we now know having been through this process. A newly started up business is definitely a red flag for us now plus really good background checks on the team. I don't think a lot of the people on their new website are even real people! Team photos are almost certainly AI... We are wiser and more savvy now but hope others don't fall into the same trap...