What to Do When a Supplier Goes Bust (And How to Get Your Money Back)

A £200 credit card payment on a £10,300 order. That was the difference between getting every penny back and joining a queue of unsecured creditors who, statistically, receive nothing. The bifold door company had been trading for years. Looked legitimate. Took the deposit, took the progress payments, kept reassuring. Then one day the premises were empty and a letter arrived from an insolvency practitioner.

This happens more often than you think. Construction had the highest insolvency rate of any UK sector in 2024, with over 4,000 companies going under. Smaller specialist fabricators (bifold doors, windows, bespoke kitchens, roof lanterns) are the most vulnerable because they carry high material costs, long lead times, and thin margins. You're paying thousands of pounds months before you see a product. That's the risk.

The good news: there's a legal mechanism that makes your credit card company jointly liable with the supplier. It works. But only if you've set it up before things go wrong.