The following message appears at the top of the Proviation Home page:
Pilot Shop Update: Please visit our news page for an urgent shop announcement. Thanks.
The following message appears on the (rather harder to find) Proviation News page:
URGENT NEWS : 11 FEBRUARY 2014
As of 11 February, we have received news that we cannot accept credit or debit cards through our existing provider. We have only had a brief trading period with this provider, and so we do not have sufficient trading history with them in order to change this outcome.
Unfortunately our website was offline for much of last week, and various parts of the site were not working correctly during the times the site was online. This seems to have panicked some customers into charging back their cards in a very short period. This, combined with our site being offline, has tripped the risk management controls at our merchant bank.
We are now unable to accept cards on our store, and therefore the company is rendered useless. In addition, amounts owed to the company by our card processor will now be withheld, in order to re-pay any affected customers. Therefore the company is short of a great deal of planned income.
We are obligated not to ship any further orders.
We have a strict time limit on refunds, and have tried to complete as many as possible before midnight on 11th February to ensure they go through.
We have already refunded numerous recent orders which had not left recently. We have issued order cancellation messages to those orders by email and your refund will appear shortly.
For any other outstanding orders, we will try to get the refund put through our merchant account. Please check your account over the next 7 days.
We would like to express with absolute truth that this circumstance was completely unexpected. While it is a simple commercial decision for a large banking corporation to take, it is a devastating blow to a small business. This blow was dealt on Monday 10th February, and the final decision was taken on 11th February.
We have been trading very successfully for over 6 years, and have had the pleasure of serving many customers.
As a small company, this decision cannot be taken lightly as it has delivered a crushing prospect.
There are ways and means to re-claim money for any goods not yet delivered, however we have done our utmost to ensure these orders are already refunded. Similarly we have been able to withhold charging cards since November 2013 for orders which could not be immediately fulfilled, so in many cases, your order hasn't been charged and obviously, will not be.
We are tremendously unhappy that the Company is in this position. However, it does not provide for any way forward in the world of e-commerce.
We would like, genuinely, to thank our customers for bringing their custom to Proviation. We offer our sincerest thanks for giving us a chance over these past six years. We have tried to bring new products to market, and we hope that the aviation community in the UK looks to the USA and the wealth of exciting products available, and to the UK manufacturers who continue to support the industry as a whole.
As a smaller company, we recognise that the family companies in the UK play a key part in the fabric of the sector and we hope that our demise will not affect your buying choices in the future.
No one starts a business to fail; however we have satisfied thousands of customers over six years, and we are pleased to have brought new business to our suppliers.
We wish you, whether pilot or otherwise, blue skies and happy landings in life.
Best wishes,
Proviation Ltd.
Good luck to the creditors, and those awaiting refunds.
I wonder what will happen to the other "enterprises" -
Home - Proviation Air Express,
Home - Airfield Equipment UK & Europe and
Welcome - fly.sba
Out of curiosity, since the proviation shop website is still up and running, I tried placing an order on one of the multitudinous items still in stock. Lo and behold, you can go through the order process and select payment by cheque, PayPal etc. but not by credit card.
I'd have thought that if it had genuinely ceased trading it would be a simple matter to take down the site, leaving just the above closure message on the home page. Apparently not.
Be warned!
FBW