Previous
TV DRAGON NEEDS TO TAKE HER OWN ADVICE
Added: (Sat Jul 23 2005)
22nd July 2005
PRESS RELEASE
TV DRAGON IN THE RED
Suspicions that Red Letter Days is in financial trouble were further fuelled today by the sacking of 15 members of staff.
A recently recruited senior manager from the new Leeds office was devastated to learn that, after a high profile interview process in London earlier this year, during which she ‘won’ the most innovative idea for a new Red Letter Day Experience, she was one of the people asked to leave.
“Given what I had heard over the couple two weeks, I wasn’t surprised that ‘heads would to roll’ so that the company could cut costs. However, from a personal perspective I am pretty annoyed. She (Rachel Elnaugh) was personally involved in my recruitment. The Interviews in London were gruelling, resulting in 10 ‘lucky’ applicants landing the new senior positions that were to be created to staff the opening of the new Leeds office. I left a highly paid roll as a Product Development Manager to join Red Letter Days. It was incredibly irresponsible of Rachel to act in such a cavalier manner with people’s lives. I have been given just one weeks notice so I will be contacting my solicitor in this regard.”
According to this inside source, Red Letter Days founder and Chief Executive, Rachel Elnaugh, a multi-millionaire made famous by her appearance on the TV show The Dragons, has been personally managing the ‘problems’ her company is facing. Suppliers have been asked to ‘be patient’ but suppliers are getting nervous. One of whom is Go Ballistic, the UK’s largest network of paintball sites over late payments. Red Letter Days offers ‘experiences’ to it’s customers by buying-in activities such as paintballing from UK suppliers to sell-on under the Red Letter Days banner.
After repeated requests for payments, Go Ballistic received a personal letter from Rachel Elnaugh outlining cash-flow problems. Whilst asking for understanding and patience about clearly defined cash-flow problems, Red Letter days expected Go Ballistic to continue to take new and honour existing bookings - effectively putting Red Letter Days deeper into debt with Go Ballistic. Not surprisingly, Go Ballistic finally lost patience and withdrew their services today. It is anticipated that this will dint the Red Letter Days appeal to those looking for extreme sports as paintball boasts an ever-increasing number of participants that take up their guns and get down and dirty in the woods or head for the quick, slick indoor arena battlefields each weekend around the UK.
Go Ballistic is unrepentant. “We gave them adequate warnings and time to settle, but they advised us they could not pay the money at this time. Despite the fact that it would be impossible to replace Go Ballistic as no other operator can offer them the national coverage of sites they need to serve their customers, they held out for what to them must be a small sum of money,” insisted a very irate Director from Go Ballistic. “We are simply not prepared to offer them any more credit as we now must question their ability to pay their current debts to Go Ballistic”
Go Ballistic were further enraged by a flood of phone calls from disappointed paintballers, that were due to play this weekend, who claimed that Red Letter Days had informed them that Go Ballistic had ‘just’ cancelled their bookings. Go Ballistic staff reassured the callers that their places at all sites remained open and that if Red Letter Days paid for their game fee they could play.
ENDS
All additional information from Press Officer Celia Raho on 07771 540684
celia@pen-power.co.uk