warning if entering races/ precision timing *MOD NOTE #84*

ultraman1

Just so ye all know if are gonna enter or have entered any races through precision timing or your club are thinking of using their services...precision timing have officially gone into recievership.

pconn062

Huh, that's mad. And I thought they were cleaning up.

ger664

They were doing an awful lot of races that didn't have the numbers to justify using a chip timing companies services. Thus were probably a) getting haggled down by race directors when the numbers where Small or b) not getting paid at all

I hope that no clubs got caught, in that they dont get the online revenue for their race

ultraman1

ger664 wrote: »

I hope that no clubs got caught, in that they dont get the online revenue for their race

They shud check their emails where there is an invite to the creditors meeting

Sacksian

That's a real shame.

I always thought that they did a really professional job. They've been doing a lot of the AAI national and provincial xc races recently too.

The site is also a fantastic resource for checking up previous results of race - and scoping the competition!

I have no idea how these things work but is there any possibility that they can survive and exit receivership, or is it a terminal process?

ultraman1

Sacksian wrote: »

That's a real shame.

I always thought that they did a really professional job. They've been doing a lot of the AAI national and provincial xc races recently too.

The site is also a fantastic resource for checking up previous results of race - and scoping the competition!

I have no idea how these things work but is there any possibility that they can survive and exit receivership, or is it a terminal process?

Agree with the above,but once trust is gone they are cufcked ,no one will use them.Alot of clubs are gonna lose a good chunk of their monies they budgeted for because of precision.,and wont touch them with a barge pole again..anyone that are currently using PT for upcoming eaces are gonna lose the money that entrants have paid and are gonna have to absorb the costs of honoring the entrants that have entered through precision..

Sacksian

ultraman1 wrote: »

Agree with the above,but once trust is gone they are c****ed ,no one will use them.Alot of clubs are gonna lose a good chunk of their monies they budgeted for because of precision.,and wont touch them with a barge pole again..

Yeah, I can appreciate that - that's fair enough.

Claude Burgundy

I was contacted today by precision timing to tell me about a creditors meeting.

They went into liquidation yesterday.

I am just posting this to inform people no more no less.

wgtomblin

Who are the other chip timing providers?
Championchip, Action, Redtag...

Any others?

ultraman1

wgtomblin wrote: »

Who are the other chip timing providers?
Championchip, Action, Redtag...

Any others?

Pop up races.

RacoonQueen

TDL, sportsplits, chipit, TDS...

opus

Sad to hear, they seemed to be almost a fixture at races Noticed my entry to the Conn Ultra for next year is via their entry system so wonder what will happen?

tang1

Thats a shame, they were almost instant with results, up within seconds of a runner crossing the line. Other chip companies you can be waiting over 24 hrs for results.

ultraman1

opus wrote: »

Sad to hear, they seemed to be almost a fixture at races Noticed my entry to the Conn Ultra for next year is via their entry system so wonder what will happen?

Id say comercial races/companys will have a very different outlook towards the entrants

chavezychavez

Facebook and Twitter accounts seem to be non active as well.

Wow, that's huge if its true :-o

regularkev

ger664 wrote: »

They were doing an awful lot of races that didn't have the numbers to justify using a chip timing companies services. Thus were probably a) getting haggled down by race directors when the numbers where Small or b) not getting paid at all

I hope that no clubs got caught, in that they dont get the online revenue for their race

I believe a number of clubs are potentially in that position .. clubs would be very low down the hierarchy of creditors!

ThebitterLemon

If you entered a future event with them and used your credit card to pay, you should be able to successfully chargeback the cost by contacting your credit card company.

TbL

sconhome

ger664 wrote: »

They were doing an awful lot of races that didn't have the numbers to justify using a chip timing companies services. Thus were probably a) getting haggled down by race directors when the numbers where Small or b) not getting paid at all

Likely offering the timing services as a loss leader to gain market share and to get a more lucrative share of the race entry fee. That database of names, emails and phone numbers is an asset that should not be forgotten about. That is where the value is in this sort of company.

wellies2015

I've entered races through Precision Timing before and I'm on their mailing list for races etc - surely they can't just sell my contact details???

sconhome

wellies2015 wrote: »

I've entered races through Precision Timing before and I'm on their mailing list for races etc - surely they can't just sell my contact details???

Not what I meant.

If you are organising an event and the decision of using a particular chip company over another came down to the size of their members database, that's where the value is. Being on that mailing list means races you may never have heard of are being brought to your attention.

Like Under Armour taking over MapMyRun the value was in the members database, not the app itself. Anyone buying or taking over the company would have access to the email database as an existing asset, it is what any residual value for the business will be based on.

wellies2015

oh I see, thanks.

sconhome

Just a thought, if you have any race results on there it would be advisable to download and save them (if you want them for future reference)

Krusty_Clown

It's a bit of a shame, as from personal experience, they offered one of the best race timing services around. Hopefully they can survive this (obviously looking after their creditors), and regain customer confidence. Anyone know if it's a franchise? Have seen near-identical race timing infrastructures (website race results) for other foreign races.

pconn062

Precision timing owe clubs money for entries from races as far back as June. I feel there are going to be massive ramifications from this.

RacoonQueen

http://www.the42.ie/precision-timing-liquidation-2368691-Oct2015/?utm_source=shortlink

May have been in trouble for a while. Not good. Pretty disgusting actually as some of the more prominent precision timing faces are / were heavily involved in athletics as athletes so would know how much clubs rely on the money they make from races.

average_runner

pconn062 wrote: »

Precision timing owe clubs money for entries from races as far back as June. I feel there are going to be massive ramifications from this.

We used them for our club race in Sept, wonder how hard are we hit.

pconn062

average_runner wrote: »

We used them for our club race in Sept, wonder how hard are we hit.

I'm guessing very hard, our road race was in July and we are in trouble.

Timmaay

As someone who is involved in chip timing of races (at a fairly local/small scale), I have to say I'm shocked with all this. It's a shame in terms of they did offer a good very fast level of a service, with a very good website and comprehensive results section. It's an eyeopener for myself in terms of the risk that is involved with collecting payments for clubs etc as such (What I've do with some races is direct the money immediately into the clients bank account, I really should be doing that with everyone!). If clubs are owed money as far back as June then unfortunately it doesn't look good for them, but lets hope something good comes out of the creditors meeting.

Murph_D

Just looking at their results page they did 32 races in Sept alone. Not sure if they processed entries in all of them but that's a lot of recent activity for a company that must have known it was in trouble. Ouch.

vanderlyle

Article about them from Dec 2013 incl interview with owner.

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/once-upon-a-time-irish-firms-fairytale-rise-29846800.html

Claude Burgundy

We had two events booked with them this year, the one in July we got 80% of the funds so we've lost out there and we have an event in November and lost all those funds as well.

The worst thing is its not ours, it all for charity:(

I feel sorry for the staff, i was talking to one of them yesterday and they were in tears.

adrian522

Does it strike anyone else as strange (or even a bit crazy) that clubs charge say €20 entry, they hire a timing company (who gets probably €1 or thereabouts of the €20.

But the timing company is the one who takes the full payment, and doesn't pay the club until months later (if at all in this case), even without the current mess that sounds like a messed up system.

I think clubs will need to organise taking payments themselves via their own websites and pay a timing company separately. This is very easily done now with Paypal or similar services. I don't think they should have to do without that money for so long.

Claude Burgundy

adrian522 wrote: »

Does it strike anyone else as strange (or even a bit crazy) that clubs charge say €20 entry, they hire a timing company (who gets probably €1 or thereabouts of the €20.

But the timing company is the one who takes the full payment, and doesn't pay the club until months later (if at all in this case), even without the current mess that sounds like a messed up system.

I think clubs will need to organise taking payments themselves via their own websites and pay a timing company separately. This is very easily done now with Paypal or similar services. I don't think they should have to do without that money for so long.

It can be expensive percentage wise and they lowered the chip cost if you used their entry system as well .I also use another entry system that pays every 15 days. I found that Precision would be pay anytime if i asked. Honestly never had a problem with them.

alwaysrunning

Hi - new to boards, just googling about Precision Timing and came across this thread.

Regarding upcoming races that they have committed to, will they just not be showing up?

sconhome

alwaysrunning wrote: »

Hi - new to boards, just googling about Precision Timing and came across this thread.

Regarding upcoming races that they have committed to, will they just not be showing up?

Even if the directors wanted to fulfill the obligation they can't use company property as it belongs to the receiver now. I would not hold much hope for a quick turnaround.

sconhome

adrian522 wrote: »

Does it strike anyone else as strange (or even a bit crazy) that clubs charge say €20 entry, they hire a timing company (who gets probably €1 or thereabouts of the €20.

But the timing company is the one who takes the full payment, and doesn't pay the club until months later (if at all in this case), even without the current mess that sounds like a messed up system.

I think clubs will need to organise taking payments themselves via their own websites and pay a timing company separately. This is very easily done now with Paypal or similar services. I don't think they should have to do without that money for so long.

Passing the buck to one company to handle everything is so appealing to RD's and committees who are just volunteers. Problem is the physical cost of providing the service is not backed up with income.

Say for example a RD books based on 500 expected racers and only 250 turn up? Cost base is the same and potential profit is halved.

Now what happens if the cost was so low as to make the x500 a break-even on the chip timing? This is what was happening. Numbers falling at races, chips priced at cost.

Many other chip timing companies have a minimum call out cost and then per chip charge. There is a reason for that structure.

adrian522

I'm not saying there is no good reason for it but I can't accept that it is good practice to leave your money sitting with a 3rd party for months, at the very least it should be sitting in your own bank account earning interest not in someone else's account earning them interest.

RICHIE-RICH

adrian522 wrote: »

Does it strike anyone else as strange (or even a bit crazy) that clubs charge say €20 entry, they hire a timing company (who gets probably €1 or thereabouts of the €20.

But the timing company is the one who takes the full payment, and doesn't pay the club until months later (if at all in this case), even without the current mess that sounds like a messed up system.

I think clubs will need to organise taking payments themselves via their own websites and pay a timing company separately. This is very easily done now with Paypal or similar services. I don't think they should have to do without that money for so long.

We organised a race earlier in September, and the way that is works is they collect all the online entries, and then issue you with a statement saying you had say 100 online entries at 10 =€1000. Their fees are approx 400 flat charge, plus 1.50 per entry.
Then you combine the "on the day entries" charged at 1.50 per bib. If you had 250 turn up on the day, your statement would look like:
Fee 400
Bib fees: 100 + 250 * 1.50 = 525
Total 925.
PT have collected the 1,000, and so they owe you the 75.
Obviously if the entry fee is 20, then the numbers change dramatically, and they will owe you much more.

Most smaller races offer on the day entries, and so hopefully they won't get too burned by this. It turns out that people don't really (in my experience) do advance race entry, unless the entries are guaranteed to sell out fast (e.g. Ballycotton 10, Fota 4 miler).
It'll be the large popular races that have lots of online entries, which will be hit. Hopefully it wont mean that they'll be so badly hit , that they will be forced to cancel or hike up the entry fees to cover the loss.


In my professional life, I have been involved/acted in a number of liquidations (acted for parties on both sides of the fence), and in summary, if you are a creditor that is not the Bank or Revenue Commissioners, then forget about it.
If the company cannot meet its liabilities to trade creditors, then it, more than likely, cannot meet its liabilities to the "larger" secured creditors. These (banks/Revenue) will take preference, and IF (large IF) there is any cash lafter liquidating assets, the unsecured creditors will be entitled to that, but only on a proportional basis (they might get 10 cent in the euro owed -which would be a result!)
Generally speaking, once a company is in liquidation, the creditors should forget about it.
You can attend the creditors meeting, and join in the shouting match at the directors, but at that stage its too late. The company is in liquidation, the directors are only there to give their side of the story, and the liquidator takes charge of the company and the liquidation of same. Note that the liquidator must get paid , and he/she is ranked higher than unsecured creditors also.

I have been to creditor meetings where the, very angry, creditors quizzed the directors on the shady dealings, and about issuing bouncing cheques, and the directors just sat there, took the questions, and basically shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn't really answer the question at that time. It was infuriating for the creditors, but was a really good lesson in being brazen!!

Legal action against the directors generally don't happen for reckless trading or similar. If there is a serious grievance, then it can be pursued, but I haven't really seen it. The ODCE (office of director of corporate enforcement) is the person who is supposed to be monitoring wayward directors, but is largely toothless. (See Anglo case, and see how long and cumbersome it is/was to go after these guys with large serious company law offenses)

Claude Burgundy

RICHIE-RICH wrote: »

We organised a race earlier in September, and the way that is works is they collect all the online entries, and then issue you with a statement saying you had say 100 online entries at 10 =€1000. Their fees are approx 400 flat charge, plus 1.50 per entry.
Then you combine the "on the day entries" charged at 1.50 per bib. If you had 250 turn up on the day, your statement would look like:
Fee 400
Bib fees: 100 + 250 * 1.50 = 525
Total 925.
PT have collected the 1,000, and so they owe you the 75.
Obviously if the entry fee is 20, then the numbers change dramatically, and they will owe you much more.

Most smaller races offer on the day entries, and so hopefully they won't get too burned by this. It turns out that people don't really (in my experience) do advance race entry, unless the entries are guaranteed to sell out fast (e.g. Ballycotton 10, Fota 4 miler).
It'll be the large popular races that have lots of online entries, which will be hit. Hopefully it wont mean that they'll be so badly hit , that they will be forced to cancel or hike up the entry fees to cover the loss.


In my professional life, I have been involved/acted in a number of liquidations (acted for parties on both sides of the fence), and in summary, if you are a creditor that is not the Bank or Revenue Commissioners, then forget about it.
If the company cannot meet its liabilities to trade creditors, then it, more than likely, cannot meet its liabilities to the "larger" secured creditors. These (banks/Revenue) will take preference, and IF (large IF) there is any cash lafter liquidating assets, the unsecured creditors will be entitled to that, but only on a proportional basis (they might get 10 cent in the euro owed -which would be a result!)
Generally speaking, once a company is in liquidation, the creditors should forget about it.
You can attend the creditors meeting, and join in the shouting match at the directors, but at that stage its too late. The company is in liquidation, the directors are only there to give their side of the story, and the liquidator takes charge of the company and the liquidation of same. Note that the liquidator must get paid , and he/she is ranked higher than unsecured creditors also.

I have been to creditor meetings where the, very angry, creditors quizzed the directors on the shady dealings, and about issuing bouncing cheques, and the directors just sat there, took the questions, and basically shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn't really answer the question at that time. It was infuriating for the creditors, but was a really good lesson in being brazen!!

Legal action against the directors generally don't happen for reckless trading or similar. If there is a serious grievance, then it can be pursued, but I haven't really seen it. The ODCE (office of director of corporate enforcement) is the person who is supposed to be monitoring wayward directors, but is largely toothless. (See Anglo case, and see how long and cumbersome it is/was to go after these guys with large serious company law offenses)

Great post and spot on !

We've moved on instantly, all we cared about were the names of those who have entered already and we have it.

We consider that money to be gone.

wellies2015

Precision Timing were in business for years and had plenty of athletics experience in their team. If they were booked for races that didn't make a profit and possibly left them owed money, surely they'd have learned pretty quickly to turn down jobs that wouldn't have been worth while. Looking at their website, they had enough high profile races to keep them going. Its not as if they were a start-up who couldn't afford to turn away business. Can understand if they got caught a few times with organisers overestimating their numbers but that's a lesson a business should learn pretty quickly.

Where they took in entry fees, those were client funds and if that money is gone surely there's something very dodgy going on.....

pconn062

It's worth noting that PT have been holding onto fees since June, yet continued to take on events up until last week, knowing full well that they weren't going to hand over money to the clubs/organisers. If you scroll through there results page in the website it will give you an idea of how many entries and how much money we are talking about here. Surely there are legal ramifications involved in dealings like this, continuing to take on new business while withholding funds from creditors?

Murph_D

The last creditors meeting I was at the directors didn't even bother to show up! I think we got about 100 out of 5000 or so owed. It paid for a few commiseration pints. Is the company in liquidation already? I suppose the only hope is if the receiver decides there a good underlying business there and tries to trade out of the problem. Highly unlikely I'd imagine.

[Edit - article above confirms liquidation is in process.]

ultraman1

ThebitterLemon wrote: »

If you entered a future event with them and used your credit card to pay, you should be able to successfully chargeback the cost by contacting your credit card company.

TbL

A friend checked this....he is now a creditor.

wellies2015

from what I'm learning from google (!) if the company was trading recklessly or there was anything dodgy going on, the directors can't hide behind the fact that its a limited company and can be sued personally. As is only fair.

Claude Burgundy

wellies2015 wrote: »

from what I'm learning from google (!) if the company was trading recklessly or there was anything dodgy going on, the directors can't hide behind the fact that its a limited company and can be sued personally. As is only fair.

Easy to say, hard to prove.

RacoonQueen

I assume (most) races will honour the people who have already entered online.

RICHIE-RICH

Claude Burgundy wrote: »

Easy to say, hard to prove.

Indeed, and also the cost to prove would, in most cases, be much more significant than debt owed.

Another point to note is that if directors were wary of any personal action being taken for funds, they could leg it to the UK for 12 months, and declare bankruptcy.

Timmaay

RICHIE-RICH wrote: »

We organised a race earlier in September, and the way that is works is they collect all the online entries, and then issue you with a statement saying you had say 100 online entries at 10 =€1000. Their fees are approx 400 flat charge, plus 1.50 per entry.
Then you combine the "on the day entries" charged at 1.50 per bib. If you had 250 turn up on the day, your statement would look like:
Fee 400
Bib fees: 100 + 250 * 1.50 = 525
Total 925.
PT have collected the 1,000, and so they owe you the 75.
Obviously if the entry fee is 20, then the numbers change dramatically, and they will owe you much more.

Most smaller races offer on the day entries, and so hopefully they won't get too burned by this. It turns out that people don't really (in my experience) do advance race entry, unless the entries are guaranteed to sell out fast (e.g. Ballycotton 10, Fota 4 miler).
It'll be the large popular races that have lots of online entries, which will be hit. Hopefully it wont mean that they'll be so badly hit , that they will be forced to cancel or hike up the entry fees to cover the loss.

Alongside the actualy race timing charge, Precision had approximately a 7% online entry fee (usually the clubs past it on to the competitor). Does anyone know the breakdown of this? The standard credit card merchant fee is something around 2/3%. Where did the rest of it go to?

Claude Burgundy

RacoonQueen wrote: »

I assume (most) races will honour the people who have already entered online.

We are 100%

Claude Burgundy

Timmaay wrote: »

Alongside the actualy race timing charge, Precision had approximately a 7% online entry fee (usually the clubs past it on to the competitor). Does anyone know the breakdown of this? The standard credit card merchant fee is something around 2/3%. Where did the rest of it go to?

It was min charge of 1.40 per transaction.

Other companies also have this charge so they aren't alone. I think active is 7.5 or 6.5.

RICHIE-RICH

Timmaay wrote: »

Alongside the actualy race timing charge, Precision had approximately a 7% online entry fee (usually the clubs past it on to the competitor). Does anyone know the breakdown of this? The standard credit card merchant fee is something around 2/3%. Where did the rest of it go to?

They were a business. It was not a charity service. The extra % (if appliable) was profit/cover their costs.

In our case, it was 1.50 charge per bib issued, plus a flat fee. That was it.
The race entry was €10. The organisers absorbed the 1.50 (and so we got 8.50 per entry).
Other clubs/races may have had a different deal, based on % of entry fee.

I noted that the flat fee from invoice this year was 400, and last year was only 300 - maybe a sign that things were getting tight?

I would have to say that in my dealings with them, I found the guys on the ground to be great, helpful, accommodating, and nice people. I really feel for them and they are the ones that suffer the most in all of this.
The service offered was great - it cut down on the admin overheads. The PT guys came along, gave you a bunch of numbers, you got the runners to fill in their detail on the entry form, and you took the cash, gave them their bib. Results were printed in minutes after final runner crossed the line. We felt that the professionalism of the operation warranted the fee. It was built into our budget.

In other races that have no chip timing or PT-type operator, you will normally be queueing for 5-10 minutes as the guy at the top of they queue fumbles with the pen and entry form, and no-one has change of a 50. You'll then have to wait 24 hours for the results.
Plus the organisers have to have many more stewards on hand to handle the finishing chute, and counting and manual entries.
Getting volunteers for stewarding etc is difficult enough, without having to arrange 8 or so competent stewards who understand the system of recording the numbers, and position (twice) and match it to the time on the clock.
IMO a huge headache, and potential for problems and complaints. And as everyone knows, some runners love a good moan about how their time was 2 seconds off their watch, and that they definitely finished ahead of bib number 322, but the results show that they were behind!