SpinVox rattles the money tin, but is it too late?

I know what you’re thinking. “Oh no, not another SpinVox-bashing post”. So rather than continue Ewan’s previous run of what some people have accused of being a personal rant when it’s just merely reporting facts with a few points of personal opinion attached, I’m going to do something different here. I’ll state some “facts” from a couple of other publications, and you can make up your own mind whether we – or the world of technology media at a whole – is on a witch hunt.

Financial Mail reported the following yesterday that:

• one of SpinVox’s ‘technology partners’ is about to pull the plug over an outstanding bill of £100,000.
• another supplier last week filed three county court claims against the company for over £200,000 of unpaid bills.
• other suppliers spoken to by the Financial Mail have said they haven’t been paid for months – if at all.
• some have been threatened with legal action by SpinVox if they spoke to the press.
• one of SpinVox’s call centre suppliers is filing a lawsuit in the High Court.

A quick crunch of the numbers involved in the article and it totals around £320,000.

Meanwhile The Guardian is reporting SpinVox have raised an undisclosed amount – rumoured to be at least £5.5m – of emergency funding from existing suppliers.

Financial Mail’s sources? I count three companies – at least – who aren’t SpinVox. The source of The Guardian’s story? SpinVox itself.

So what did SpinVox say when asked to comment by the Financial Mail? “We’re naturally having discussions with our customers and suppliers as we all adapt to the conditions of the credit crunch” said the unnamed person – who added they “could not comment on matters of litigation.”