A Kiwi-based travel company that recently announced it was closing and wouldn’t be refunding hundreds of customers’ pre-paid trips owes at least $2.5 million, liquidators believe.

Eco-travel business We Are Bamboo announced in late October it was closing, blaming the failure of the business partly on Covid.

When asked by some customers whether they would be refunded the thousands of dollars already pre-paid for future holidays, the company told them over email they would not be receiving refunds, invoking the “force majeure” section of their terms and conditions.

Bamboo have now gone into liquidation, with liquidators estimating in their report the amount of money owed to customers alone was in the millions.

The figure comes from the first liquidators report, released by BDO Wellington on December 8.

The report said the company had just $116,264 money in the bank as available assets for creditors, and $28,275 as related party loans.

“We have not been provided with a total value of customer deposits and payments that the company has received. We estimate this to be in excess of $2.5m.”

Bamboo operated as a travel agency offering tours through multiple countries, allowing customers to volunteer in the community as well as experience the area. Most of the customers are based in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia

“As with many other businesses in the travel and tourism sectors, the company felt the pressures of the Covid-19 travel restrictions and was required to push out several planned tours throughout 2020 and 2021,” the report said.

“We are advised some customers were not pleased with continued delays and requested refunds which the company rejected on the grounds of their terms of trade. Negative perception associated with this caused a downturn in bookings and therefore cash flow.”

Director Colin Salisbury made the decision to cease trading on October 31.

“This was not well received by those affected who continued to request refunds for tours that had been paid for in advance and in some instances initiated proceedings in the Disputes Tribunal. A considerable number of disputes were lodged with banks and financial institutions and we understand many of these were accepted and paid.”

All the company’s creditors were individuals rather than other companies, the report said, but the volume of the individuals was such that it wasn’t practical to prepare a list for the report.

A Facebook page for affected customers has 1300 members.

“The liquidators will investigate all aspects of the company and review whether there have been any breaches of director’s duties.”

The only identified asset was cash in the bank and a related party loan, so “any meaningful distribution to creditors will likely only be possible through legal recovery”.

Meanwhile, an affected customer said she received an email from Bamboo asking for her to pay down some of the balance of an upcoming trip, just three days before it announced its closure.

Australian woman Lynn Hibbard was on another Bamboo tour in Nepal when she received the email on October 28.

“We are now giving you the option to reduce your balance at any time if you wish to,” said the email, providing a link for Hibbard to follow to pay off some of the trip.

A few days later she received the closure email, which she showed to her tour guide.

“He went white, he knew nothing about it. I thought ‘oh gosh, how terrible, we’re breaking this news to him’,” she told the Herald.

Hibbard said her experiences with Bamboo before now had been “so wonderful”, but she was upset the company had emailed her asking for money so soon before announcing closure.

“I thought ‘how could you?’ ... What if I had paid it?”

The whole closure controversy was “a shame”.

“You can’t just take people’s money and say ‘I’m closing my business, thank you’.”

She said she is owed about $4770, which she has an insurance claim for.

Commerce Commission general manager of fair trading Vanessa Horne said they had received 237 enquiries about the company in the past few months, most of which were made since the closure announcement.