Zedbox, Box Modular and Charles “Charlie” Dalton.
11 months ago today the groundworks for my Zedbox Garden Annexe ground to a halt as the team were called off site and an experience that has left me out of pocket and damage to both my physical and mental health began.
I’ve kept quiet and busy picking up the pieces until now but I feel the need to make people aware of what happened to me as there is a distinct risk that the same fate is awaiting other people out there. The former Director of Zedbox Charles Dalton aka Charlie has started a new venture almost identical to Zedbox! My story is long, sad and utterly frustrating however I hope you will read it and consider it carefully if you or anyone you know is considering a purchase from Gardenannexes.com by Box Modular (renamed just today on Companies House as GX Modular) as it might save time, health and money!
After spending several months researching my options, making budgets and organising a loan I paid my first payment to order my Zedbox Garden Annexe in October 2018 to go in Grandma Betty’s garden. It was to be built on the site that was at the time occupied by my Grandfather’s old garage and shed. The idea of the Zedbox was to enable me to move in with Grandma Betty who being in her late 90s (at the time of ordering she was 97) needs a bit of help around the house and company as she had been living alone for some years. By having the Zedbox I would be on site with her but also would retain independence for both of us as I would have my own space. The Zedbox sounded amazing with all the things I needed; bedroom, shower room, living space and kitchen all brought in as flat pack and built on site in a matter of days.
Excitedly I waited for the council to make a decision on the planning application and was ecstatic when I received a call just before Christmas 2018 confirming that my application was successful! My family generously gave me many items I needed to furnish my new home as Christmas gifts which helped my tight budget a lot and I packed them away to wait the few months until the build was completed. I had a site visit in early February 2019 and was promised a start date soon. After a bit of chasing of my project manager at Zedbox I was given a start date for the work. Once I had this I galvanised myself into action to get the site ready. I had the electricity company in to upgrade the property connection to accommodate my Zedbox usage. I decided on demolishing Granddad’s old shed myself and digging out a very stubborn holly bush that was in the way to save some of the budget not having to get a contractor in to do it. Eventually I had to admit defeat with the holly bush and get a chap in with a machine to dig up the roots as they were in too deep after 60 years of growth for me and my spade! I had a specialist company had to come in and remove the old garage as it was made of panels containing asbestos.
The Groundworks start date changed a couple of times due to “delays in the factory” after a piece of machinery broke down and then my project manager went AWOL with no answer to my messages or emails on the Thursday and Friday before the work was due to start on 25th March 2019 but I was told by another Zedbox employee by phone that it was on the job board. I was anxious all weekend whether or not the work would be going ahead but still prepared everything ready and waited on the Monday morning. Thankfully a friendly pair of guys arrived to start work first thing so I told myself that it was just a hiccup and should run smoothly from then on. Oh boy was I wrong!
The people arrived but the equipment didn’t. Zedbox had told me that all the kit the team needed including a jackhammer, skip and portaloo would be delivered that morning. The chaps who had arrived to do the work tried their best to be productive taking up patio tiles by hand with a spade and pickaxe to get the water connection underway whilst they waited. I spent my morning on the phone trying to reach my project manager with the women answering the phones telling me again and again that he was unavailable and offering to take messages. After speaking with the workers they told me that the women answering the phone are virtual receptionists so they don’t actually know where anyone is and only ever pass on messages. I got frustrated and left another message with the ladies advising that I needed someone to call me back and tell me what was going on within the hour or I would get in my car and drive the 90 minutes to the office to get some answers in person. This did the trick and I was called back by a new person who advised that my project manager had unexpectedly left the business and this new guy would be taking over. I was informed that the missing kit would be arranged for the following day and as such the guys would be told to make safe what they had done and come back the next day.
The following day my friends the groundworkers returned still with no appropriate kit and tried their best to continue working using the pickaxe and a small jackhammer to start breaking up the concrete where the Zedbox was going to be built. The ground crew called me out of the house to ask if a change to the electricity connection would be ok. Originally the agreement was that the electric would be run from the fuse board in the front of the house through the front wall and laid into a channel under the driveway so that there weren’t any ugly wires running over the front of the house or causing a possible trip hazard at ground level. They now wanted to run the wires across the front of the house attached to the wall because it would be faster (and cheaper of course) but I said no as that was not what I had agreed in my contract with them. My groundworkers understood my refusal to accept that change and relayed the message back to the office. After that I made more calls to my new project manager telling him I was unhappy that still there was no sign of the kit and that the contracted plan was not being stuck to. At this point the project manager decided to pull the men off the site until he could organise the equipment and familiarise himself with my order. I was absolutely devastated with how badly it had been arranged.
Over the next few weeks nothing happened. I was very anxious as the communication from Zedbox was virtually non existent even though I was spending hours on the phone and emails chasing what was happening. I discovered that the entire staff had been put on gardening leave for a fortnight and advised to seek employment elsewhere as they weren’t sure there would be jobs for them to return to. I took advice from CAB and frantically researched my rights whilst posting all over the Zedbox social media to try and get some answers from Charlie Dalton their Director. I kept being told when I did manage to reach my project manager was that there were financial issues that the management were trying to resolve before they could reinstate their supply of equipment and materials to continue my build and the others on the books. An image I posted of the mess, hole and exposed pipework left in the patio that was covered only by a thin piece of chipboard was retweeted by Janey Godley the comedian who has a far higher reach on social media than me with comments calling Charlie out and at last he finally made contact.
At first Charlie tried to tell me that everything in the business was fine and that all the hysteria online was caused by a disgruntled ex employee. I told him that as I had now spoken to a number of other customers experiencing similar issues to me I was not inclined to believe that and was utterly unconfident that the project would be completed. At this point Charlie admitted there were cashflow problems he was working to resolve by selling the sister business Smart Garden Offices to inject the cash into Zedbox. Charlie was adamant my project would be finished. In an attempt to restore my faith in him and the company Charlie arranged for a couple of other men to come and make safe the patio whilst he did what he needed to refinance the business which they did on 3rd April 2019 over a month after the work had begun. It took another 2 weeks of Charlie promising me various calls from others within the business to reschedule the work and I sent a formal letter as advised by CAB telling Zedbox that I required a revised schedule of works or a full refund. After a lot of cajoling and chasing by phone I was told that the team would be returning on 7th May 2019 (my birthday and the day I had previously been promised work would be complete by) to restart the groundwork with a view to completing the build by the end of May. I was exhausted by all this but thankful it seemed to finally be starting to move along again until my new project manager stopped answering emails and phonecalls. On 29th April I had to chase Charlie down again as I wasn’t getting anywhere and the new work date was the following week. I was promised a call from Richard Adams the acting MD which never happened. On 30th April I had a call from another Zedbox customer who I had connected with online. They had spoken to Richard Adams that morning and been told that he was on his way to a legal meeting with Charlie and as of the end of that meeting he would no longer be with the business and that it was going under.
By now I was totally livid and left a string of voicemails on Charlie’s mobile demanding that he call me and explain what the hell was going on! It took a few hours before I got a text back saying that he was in a meeting with solicitors about the Smart sale and would call soon. I spent that day in an agony of anxiety and eventually when I did speak to Charlie I got another story about the Smart sale not going as planned and that I would still get my build if only I would wait a few more months as Charlie still needed to refinance things. I knew then that it was done but I needed to try absolutely everything so when Charlie offered a meeting the following week to see the factory and talk over his plans to resolve the issues I accepted. The meeting came on 8th May (the day after my birthday, what a great birthday that was full of anxiety about the meeting!) and I drove with my Dad to the Zedbox factory. We sat there and listened as we were given yet another story of how Charlie had been so certain he could fix things but he now had no choice but to put the company into liquidation. Dad calmly (and surprisingly politely) gave Charlie an earful about how badly he had treated me and the other 5 customers I had begun to communicate with. I sat there forcing myself to stay calm despite my sudden wish to reach across the table and hit Charlie (I didn’t and wouldn’t but for a split second the temptation was there). We left the office and drove home stunned that I had basically lost all money paid so far which amounted to almost £23,000! I had already tried to claim whatever I could back through the bank the previous week on advice from Charlie that it would be covered under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act but found that because my total Zedbox order including the balance left unpaid was greater than the upper limit of £30,000 I was basically screwed! A couple of days later Charlie posted an update on the Zedbox blog claiming he had personally spoken to every affected customer about the situation. I knew this was untrue as several of the people I was in contact with had not heard from him. I called him out on this and the post was swiftly edited.
I attended a meeting a month later where the Liquidator was appointed and Charlie answered questions about what had happened. Several other creditors attended and between us we gave Charlie a pretty rough time questioning what had happened. As there is an issue of confidentiality at present I can’t tell you what I learned at that meeting or subsequent meetings I have attended at this time. Please trust me when I say that Charles Dalton CANNOT BE TRUSTED and has not learned from the demise of Zedbox as he claims on the new Gardenannexes.com site also he is still claiming untruths to the public. As of right now there is a page regarding Zedbox that says:
“In January 2020 Charlie Dalton set up The ZB Trust, an independent entity which is dedicated to honouring Zedbox warranties, repaying customers and all suppliers who were involved.
It is intended that all beneficiaries, contacted in January 2020, will receive full pay out via the
trust over a 48 month period. The Trust now trades the current XB range. Please click here to contact the Trustees.
Beneficiaries have password enabled access to the ZB Trust website: www.zbtrust.org.uk”
This claim is NOT TRUE I and several other Zedbox creditors have heard nothing from Charlie or anyone on his behalf since June 2019. Another example I feel shows that “unusual” things are going on which is also available in the public domain is: Charlie registered his new company Box Modular under the name Charles Peter Dalton rather than his full name of Charles Peter EDMUND Dalton which was used to register Zedbox and sister company Smart Garden Offices. This makes it harder to find the trail of destruction so if anyone looks up Box Modular on Companies House they will not see the link between them. I do not feel that the page regarding Zedbox on the GardenAnnexes site is prominent enough to make the link between the companies obvious to potential customers. In my opinion the new business will go the same way as Zedbox and there will be more ordinary people like me who are left to deal with the aftermath.
I am now paying a loan back for something I paid for but never received. I ended up being signed off work for some time due to the mental health issues and high blood pressure caused by the stress of the Zedbox closure and loss of my paid monies. I am still taking medication for my blood pressure at present although I hope that this will eventually resolve itself. As my regular followers and friends know I was able to resurrect my project to be able to move in with Grandma Betty but many other creditors of Zedbox were unable to do this. The laws regarding insolvency in the UK have allowed Charles Dalton to basically start again with every possibility that history will repeat itself. Please take my warning and don’t give this man or any company he is affiliated with money as I do not believe that you will see either the product ordered or the money again!
For those who want it the TL;DR version:
In my opinion after a really awful experience I don’t want anyone to be hurt by the Director of GX Modular formerly Box Modular like I and 50+ others were. Please do not give the company or any other associated with Charles Dalton your order!
Edit 11:37 27th February 2020
At 10:49 this morning a change of details for the Director was made on the Companies House record for GX Modular. I told Charlie about his “mistake” in June 2019 and it has taken him until now to correct it. Seems rather convenient that he only did so after my post went live.
