London! First of the 2013 AskAndy Europe Tour

Langham said:

Shaver, you and Bjorn may be good at turning the other cheek when things go wrong for you, but I'm afraid I must be made of baser stuff. However, I mentioned nothing about giving him a good kicking. But now I come to think of it, if I was one of Bookster's apparently large ensemble of disappointed customers, out of pocket to the tune, say, of a six or seven hundred pounds, I wonder whether my thoughts would be sufficiently charitable to adopt such an Olympian level of personal detachment that the possibility of enacting some immediate act of physical revenge would really be out of the question? At the very least, I would be hoping for a rather better and more complete explanation of the whole sorry state of affairs than seems to have been offered so far - like what had been done with my money since last December or whenever.

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I think it reads pretty much like every other bankruptcy of a smaller business I've come across, so maybe that's the difference. Also, there are generally far better ways of defrauding people, without going into personal bankruptcy. When doing business (even if its only buying clothes) there's generally a risk.

Having had some experience with how people who run smaller businesses generally act towards risk, I haven't found that many who willfully swindled their clients. But they do let things go on, simply because they are sincerely hoping and praying for the best. Theres no clear line where they end and their business begins, They are too involved to behave like professional managers, and generally don't pay for quality advice. Debts stack up. There's no malevolent intent there. It just happens again and again and again. I've seen it plenty of times. I think it's there to be found in past and current literature as well. Bankruptcy is always something that happens to other people.

Knowing also what kind of process personal bankruptcy is and what it entails long term, I'm thinking that the clothes ordered and not received wasn't a lifetime investment for the members here. And that Bookster did try to put out some rather nice products for some time. So we could just be gentlemen about it, and offer him a pint and a pat on the back.

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