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The Welfare Hutch Company - UPDATE

roxyroller88

Mama Doe
I've been talking to a lady today who has been waiting on some hutches from them since April. After much correspondence she got this from them today.
So for anyone that is waiting on a hutch/run, this is an update for you.
x


Dear Customers

Thank you for your orders from The Welfare Hutch Company.

It is with a heavy heart that I have to advise you that The Welfare Hutch Company has now ceased trading. We have battled to continue since the day of the fire at our workshop whilst a huge amount of orders have been cancelled by customers and refunds made. This could only continue for so long whilst we battled to continue business and we are now in an unrecoverable position.

We would advise you pursue a claim for a refund of the monies paid through the PayPal Resolution Centre.

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that this will cause to you and we thank you for your patience since the fire at our workshop.

Best wishes

The Welfare Hutch Company Team

The Welfare Hutch Company
 
That's a real shame - both for the company and for people who have paid and now may have to fight to get a refund. I heard recently that 80% of businesses who have a significant fire never manage to recover :(
 
Sadly I suspected this might be the case when I noticed their website had become unreachable.

We were lucky in that we placed an order just before the fire, and received it ok. I had planned to order more, but have now had to go to Runaround who are a bit more expensive.

Very sad that they have lost their business x
 
I've been talking to a lady today who has been waiting on some hutches from them since April. After much correspondence she got this from them today.
So for anyone that is waiting on a hutch/run, this is an update for you.
x


Dear Customers

Thank you for your orders from The Welfare Hutch Company.

It is with a heavy heart that I have to advise you that The Welfare Hutch Company has now ceased trading. We have battled to continue since the day of the fire at our workshop whilst a huge amount of orders have been cancelled by customers and refunds made. This could only continue for so long whilst we battled to continue business and we are now in an unrecoverable position.

We would advise you pursue a claim for a refund of the monies paid through the PayPal Resolution Centre.

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that this will cause to you and we thank you for your patience since the fire at our workshop.

Best wishes

The Welfare Hutch Company Team

The Welfare Hutch Company


So very sad :cry:
 
They possibly did. I read a scenario of how long it takes for insurers to pay out and the business can't rebuild fast enough so goes under.

I am sure that I remember this happening to another Hutch Building Company a few years ago. Cant for the life of me remember the Company's name though :?
 
Straight from the horses mouth... I can't even imagine how devastating this would be. Hopefully they will be back on their feet sooner rather than later!


'I've been reading various post and comments around social media and various forums about The Welfare Hutch Company. Those of you that have met me will recognise me as the owner of The Welfare Hutch company. I just want to set the record straight - straight from the horses mouth.

Most of you will know that we suffered a devastating fire at our workshop in early May. Whilst I have seen some posts and reviews from cynics doubting this; sadly it did happen and not only did myself and my partner helplessly watch the workshop burn to the ground whilst we awaited the arrival of the fire service, we also watched our home (which was attached to the workshop) being destroyed. That was not a good day for us as a company nor for myself and my partner on a personal level. Absolutely everything in the workshop was lost; all products awaiting dispatch, all of our equipment, and all of our timber. The only saving grace is that we arrived home just in time to save our dogs from the house which was already filled with smoke. Material items can be replaced; pets can't.

I did what I considered to be the right thing and I put out an email to everybody with an outstanding order informing them of the situation and that there would be a delay in dispatching our products whilst we obtained new premises to operate from and indeed new equipment. This attracted a huge amount of cancelled orders which were refunded.

Having made a massive amount of refunds and thrown vast sums of money at new premises and equipment, the company's money was rapidly running out and I had no alternative but to let the workshop team go as I was not prepared to allow them to continue working knowing that they couldn't be paid. Telling my loyal team that they haven't got a job anymore is one of the hardest and most depressing things I've ever had to do.

That left me to build the hutches, answer emails and drive around the UK delivering them. Working in excess of 14 hours a day, 7 days a week knowing I wasn't going to earn anything for it; I carried on holding the hope that the insurers would settle our claim soon and I could turn things around at The Welfare Hutch Company. Sadly, there's still no payout from the insurers and they continue to drag their heels. After having thrown our money at trying to keep the business going, it has now sadly run out and there is nothing more I can put into it.

I'm not even going to go into the impact that this has had on me personally both financially and emotionally. Every day since the fire has been an uphill climb.

On a personal level; I would like to apologise to those who haven't received their items, as stated in my email everybody will receive a refund from PayPal so I do find comfort in the knowledge that no customers will be out of pocket.

As Sarah has correctly pointed out; www.facebook.com/thearkcreations is also owned by me. This was what I did I'm my spare time before the days of The Welfare Hutch Company. I did all kinds of bespoke joinery (including quality rabbit housing!) and once the insurance company have finally settled the claim and I am able to offer a first class service to accompany the first class products, I will be making hutches, runs and sheds available from there but I'll keep you posted on that. A lot of lessons have been learned from The Welfare Hutch Company and The Ark Creations is an opportunity to apply them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

Best wishes

Tim'
 
Wow, why do bad things happen to the nicest people ☹
I'll definitely keep an eye out for the ark creations, Tim's work is awesome.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
Straight from the horses mouth... I can't even imagine how devastating this would be. Hopefully they will be back on their feet sooner rather than later!


'I've been reading various post and comments around social media and various forums about The Welfare Hutch Company. Those of you that have met me will recognise me as the owner of The Welfare Hutch company. I just want to set the record straight - straight from the horses mouth.

Most of you will know that we suffered a devastating fire at our workshop in early May. Whilst I have seen some posts and reviews from cynics doubting this; sadly it did happen and not only did myself and my partner helplessly watch the workshop burn to the ground whilst we awaited the arrival of the fire service, we also watched our home (which was attached to the workshop) being destroyed. That was not a good day for us as a company nor for myself and my partner on a personal level. Absolutely everything in the workshop was lost; all products awaiting dispatch, all of our equipment, and all of our timber. The only saving grace is that we arrived home just in time to save our dogs from the house which was already filled with smoke. Material items can be replaced; pets can't.

I did what I considered to be the right thing and I put out an email to everybody with an outstanding order informing them of the situation and that there would be a delay in dispatching our products whilst we obtained new premises to operate from and indeed new equipment. This attracted a huge amount of cancelled orders which were refunded.

Having made a massive amount of refunds and thrown vast sums of money at new premises and equipment, the company's money was rapidly running out and I had no alternative but to let the workshop team go as I was not prepared to allow them to continue working knowing that they couldn't be paid. Telling my loyal team that they haven't got a job anymore is one of the hardest and most depressing things I've ever had to do.

That left me to build the hutches, answer emails and drive around the UK delivering them. Working in excess of 14 hours a day, 7 days a week knowing I wasn't going to earn anything for it; I carried on holding the hope that the insurers would settle our claim soon and I could turn things around at The Welfare Hutch Company. Sadly, there's still no payout from the insurers and they continue to drag their heels. After having thrown our money at trying to keep the business going, it has now sadly run out and there is nothing more I can put into it.

I'm not even going to go into the impact that this has had on me personally both financially and emotionally. Every day since the fire has been an uphill climb.

On a personal level; I would like to apologise to those who haven't received their items, as stated in my email everybody will receive a refund from PayPal so I do find comfort in the knowledge that no customers will be out of pocket.

As Sarah has correctly pointed out; www.facebook.com/thearkcreations is also owned by me. This was what I did I'm my spare time before the days of The Welfare Hutch Company. I did all kinds of bespoke joinery (including quality rabbit housing!) and once the insurance company have finally settled the claim and I am able to offer a first class service to accompany the first class products, I will be making hutches, runs and sheds available from there but I'll keep you posted on that. A lot of lessons have been learned from The Welfare Hutch Company and The Ark Creations is an opportunity to apply them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

Best wishes

Tim'


Thanks for posting that Roxy.

That's so unbelievably hard and heart breaking.
Takes a long long time to ever recover from something like that, on so many levels :(
 
So sad. Hopefully he'll be able to get back to building bunny homes in the future. Scary about his dogs, glad he got them out

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk
 
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