Please take ten minutes to read our story
Donation protected
Hi everyone,
I will start by saying that we are so grateful that this kind of platform exists nowadays to help people in desperate need.
Hi again :) we are Cristiana and Angela and we are originally from Romania but living for almost a decade in Sweden.
Our story starts back in 2010 when in our 20's, full of energy and carefree, with an eager for change and a better life we have decided to pack our bags and move to Scandinavia.
Not always our life was filled with negativity, frustrations, and disappointment. With so much joy and happiness, we remember the first years and moments we had when we first arrived in Denmark.
For a couple of years, we have been working different jobs in Copenhagen but mostly in the hotel industry.
In 2016 we had our first attempt in becoming freelancers and start our own business - a healthy food truck on the streets of Copenhagen. The business was an unfortunate failure, but one with a lot of life lessons. With good and bad experiences, sad and happy moments we have been always stepping closer towards our wakeup call which probably all of us have it at some point in our life. It was an experience that was preparing us for our next chapter, which brings us to the reason we are writing to all of you out there today.
We have just closed the food company in Denmark, and we were desperately looking for a job as we were running out of money, after borrowing and spending everything we had aside, our clock was ticking, and we asap needed a job. Our bookkeeper at the time, in a discussion we had with him, he asked what kind of job we are looking for, so we said anything and everything its welcome, even going back to cleaning will be a solution. So, he had contact with a Danish cleaning company that was looking for subcontractors for cleaning services inside Copenhagen and around.
And here is another lesson we all learn at some point, that taking rush decisions can change the course of your life in a matter of seconds, and not always is for the better good. But we will tell you this, WE REGRET NOTHING! We know this is just an experience in one’s life and that this kind of experiences are meant to make you stronger, wiser and eager to follow your dreams without limiting yourself.
Now getting back to the subject, while desperate, we have decided that starting to collaborate with them will be a good decision at the time and we had no reason to think otherwise. We have contacted the owner of the company, met her and decided that we will start collaborating. At the beginning with almost no money in our accounts to cover the costs to start a new business, meeting the owner of the Danish company we thought was a blessing, as she was so willing to help us start the company without us even asking. If you are maybe asking yourself what I mean by that is that she had offered to provide us with cleaning agents and vacuum cleaner etc. to be able to start working. She has even borrowed us a 1000 danish krona (around 120 euro) to cover a part of the Oresund bridge transportation. Would you ever think that someone who reached their hand to you will stub you in the back when you will less expect? We will tell you this, in our eyes and the way we perceive life something like this will never happen. That being said, we know you can hear us!
Now…in more than a year collaborating we have grown their customer base with maybe hundreds of new customers and our company with another six employees. Having six employees brings as well more responsibilities and not only that, but the company was growing inside another company and we wanted to be able to bring our own customers inside so we can as well grow financially and not only in responsibilities, as 30% from our total income was paid to the Danish company for providing us with the customers.
In order to do that we couldn’t go for actual cleaning at the properties more than 2 times a week, so all we could do is to make sure our employees are trained to provide the same service as us, which we have done it. But this wasn’t something the other company will accept, more precisely she. Never something upfront from her side on this subject, because she wasn’t that type, she was more of a person which will choose to throw out to you small wickedness each time she could get the chance than to be open and honest about the way she was feeling about the fact that our company starting to be more of a competitor than a subcontractor.
Since the very beginning we had minuses in our payments from them, but at the start, to small amounts to actually go and say something. But when we first decided to speak up about it, we have been welcomed with a "this is not possible, our system never gets it wrong". The second time the same and even when she was saying come with the papers, we can check and see where the difference is, we were actually never getting to check anything because there was always something more important for her to be solved than this. And we never managed to check the minuses.
In the last couple of months from our collaboration, things started to become very tensioned and that start happening because she wanted to change the initial contract with a new one which was bringing more advantages for them and more disadvantages for us. You can imagine we haven’t agreed, especially that they have tried to fool us, saying that nothing it changed inside. Not speaking Danish, and the contract being edited in Danish, they probably thought we will never translate it and we will take a pen and just sign it.
After this episode, many others were about to come. They (I mean she and all the other heads in the office) have even tried to interfere between us as a company and two of our employees. Because again we thought this is wrong and nothing gives them the right to come inside our company and take decisions in our behalf we have tried to protect ourselves and for a while, we were only answering short or not at all to their messages that weren’t directly connected with our cleaning services provided through their company.
Because of this, she has started to slowly attack us, by giving us fewer jobs, most of the time so fewer jobs from Monday to Wednesday and more than we could handle Thursdays and Fridays, she was ignoring our calls/emails, she even pretend we have agreed upon some things we actually never did and so on. We knew all this will not bring a good outcome so we have tried to hire a lawyer which can defend our rights.
The amount of stress she was provoking to us at some point was too much to handle, especially that she was cutting off our customers just after she has requested us to hire more people because more and more customers were asking for us. What you need to know is that our company was only running because of the jobs we were getting from them. So she knew what was our weak point. We only have had 4 customers our own, which was too little and impossible to be able to run the company all month around with salaries and all the other expenses.
When the Swedish lawyer took over our case, he has tried to recover the money we were missing by then from our payments, which was around 50.000 danish krona (around 6000 euro). And because they knew that without going to court there wasn’t too much our lawyer could do; they have never acknowledged that they have to give us this money.
On the 15th of august, last year the lawyer send them the termination letter with effective immediately, due to the impossibility of crossing the bridge for work the next day because of their missing money from previous payments. As they weren’t happy about it, as an act of revenge they have chosen to not pay us nothing from the previous month's work now getting to owe us around 160.000 danish kroner (around 15.000 euros). All this brought up a lot of problems to us as we have got stuck with so many unpaid bills, especially no payments were done to the Swedish tax agency. We have lost, our apartment in Malmo, our car, our business, but we will never lose our hope. We believe that a kick in the ass will always be a step forward in one’s life journey.
With no money, desperate and frustrated, but with a positive attitude, we have tried to find a solution in recovering our money and we were hoping for a pro bono lawyer who could represent us in the Danish court, this being our only option to be able to solve this problem.
To find a pro bono lawyer was hard, better said impossible, so we said it is time to leave everything behind and find the way and the solution to get us back on our feet. But things are never easy, especially when you must deal with the Swedish government. Because of unpaid taxes and with almost 100.000 Swedish kroner debt to tax, the Swedish tax agency sent us in bankruptcy to Malmo court.
Because they have sued the company, it makes me and my sister direct responsible for everything the company owes to other creditors, like the Swedish tax agency. The amount of stress we feel when financial background its made, when creditors are coming knocking your door to recover the money, or when you speak with the appointed attorney for bankruptcy estate and when you don’t have anyone on your side to help and guide through all this process; when you find yourself in a situation like this, more than that, when you know it's not even your fault, it's very hard to be measured in words.
We now just want to be able to pay all the debts back so we can close this chapter once and for all. Only like this, we will be able to focus our attention on what truly matters and not to be stuck in a place/situation for maybe another two years. We know that even we couldn't manage to expose her in front of the law enforcement agencies, this will have to stop at some point, as our case isn't the only one. Someone will have the necessary resources to take this to an end.
We have decided to write this letter to you also as a life lesson for others who might find themselves in the same situation like us, hoping they won’t allow themselves to make same mistakes as us and they will be protecting themselves and their rights better than we did and because we desperately need your donations. The smallest donation will make a difference for us so don’t think a dollar or 5 will be to less to donate. We will so much appreciate every penny you are willing to donate in order to help us and we will forever be grateful for all your help and know this…WE WILL PAY IT FURTHER to others in need!
We thank you so much for taking the time to read our story and we send our warm thoughts to all of you!
Love,
Cristiana and Angela
I will start by saying that we are so grateful that this kind of platform exists nowadays to help people in desperate need.
Hi again :) we are Cristiana and Angela and we are originally from Romania but living for almost a decade in Sweden.
Our story starts back in 2010 when in our 20's, full of energy and carefree, with an eager for change and a better life we have decided to pack our bags and move to Scandinavia.
Not always our life was filled with negativity, frustrations, and disappointment. With so much joy and happiness, we remember the first years and moments we had when we first arrived in Denmark.
For a couple of years, we have been working different jobs in Copenhagen but mostly in the hotel industry.
In 2016 we had our first attempt in becoming freelancers and start our own business - a healthy food truck on the streets of Copenhagen. The business was an unfortunate failure, but one with a lot of life lessons. With good and bad experiences, sad and happy moments we have been always stepping closer towards our wakeup call which probably all of us have it at some point in our life. It was an experience that was preparing us for our next chapter, which brings us to the reason we are writing to all of you out there today.
We have just closed the food company in Denmark, and we were desperately looking for a job as we were running out of money, after borrowing and spending everything we had aside, our clock was ticking, and we asap needed a job. Our bookkeeper at the time, in a discussion we had with him, he asked what kind of job we are looking for, so we said anything and everything its welcome, even going back to cleaning will be a solution. So, he had contact with a Danish cleaning company that was looking for subcontractors for cleaning services inside Copenhagen and around.
And here is another lesson we all learn at some point, that taking rush decisions can change the course of your life in a matter of seconds, and not always is for the better good. But we will tell you this, WE REGRET NOTHING! We know this is just an experience in one’s life and that this kind of experiences are meant to make you stronger, wiser and eager to follow your dreams without limiting yourself.
Now getting back to the subject, while desperate, we have decided that starting to collaborate with them will be a good decision at the time and we had no reason to think otherwise. We have contacted the owner of the company, met her and decided that we will start collaborating. At the beginning with almost no money in our accounts to cover the costs to start a new business, meeting the owner of the Danish company we thought was a blessing, as she was so willing to help us start the company without us even asking. If you are maybe asking yourself what I mean by that is that she had offered to provide us with cleaning agents and vacuum cleaner etc. to be able to start working. She has even borrowed us a 1000 danish krona (around 120 euro) to cover a part of the Oresund bridge transportation. Would you ever think that someone who reached their hand to you will stub you in the back when you will less expect? We will tell you this, in our eyes and the way we perceive life something like this will never happen. That being said, we know you can hear us!
Now…in more than a year collaborating we have grown their customer base with maybe hundreds of new customers and our company with another six employees. Having six employees brings as well more responsibilities and not only that, but the company was growing inside another company and we wanted to be able to bring our own customers inside so we can as well grow financially and not only in responsibilities, as 30% from our total income was paid to the Danish company for providing us with the customers.
In order to do that we couldn’t go for actual cleaning at the properties more than 2 times a week, so all we could do is to make sure our employees are trained to provide the same service as us, which we have done it. But this wasn’t something the other company will accept, more precisely she. Never something upfront from her side on this subject, because she wasn’t that type, she was more of a person which will choose to throw out to you small wickedness each time she could get the chance than to be open and honest about the way she was feeling about the fact that our company starting to be more of a competitor than a subcontractor.
Since the very beginning we had minuses in our payments from them, but at the start, to small amounts to actually go and say something. But when we first decided to speak up about it, we have been welcomed with a "this is not possible, our system never gets it wrong". The second time the same and even when she was saying come with the papers, we can check and see where the difference is, we were actually never getting to check anything because there was always something more important for her to be solved than this. And we never managed to check the minuses.
In the last couple of months from our collaboration, things started to become very tensioned and that start happening because she wanted to change the initial contract with a new one which was bringing more advantages for them and more disadvantages for us. You can imagine we haven’t agreed, especially that they have tried to fool us, saying that nothing it changed inside. Not speaking Danish, and the contract being edited in Danish, they probably thought we will never translate it and we will take a pen and just sign it.
After this episode, many others were about to come. They (I mean she and all the other heads in the office) have even tried to interfere between us as a company and two of our employees. Because again we thought this is wrong and nothing gives them the right to come inside our company and take decisions in our behalf we have tried to protect ourselves and for a while, we were only answering short or not at all to their messages that weren’t directly connected with our cleaning services provided through their company.
Because of this, she has started to slowly attack us, by giving us fewer jobs, most of the time so fewer jobs from Monday to Wednesday and more than we could handle Thursdays and Fridays, she was ignoring our calls/emails, she even pretend we have agreed upon some things we actually never did and so on. We knew all this will not bring a good outcome so we have tried to hire a lawyer which can defend our rights.
The amount of stress she was provoking to us at some point was too much to handle, especially that she was cutting off our customers just after she has requested us to hire more people because more and more customers were asking for us. What you need to know is that our company was only running because of the jobs we were getting from them. So she knew what was our weak point. We only have had 4 customers our own, which was too little and impossible to be able to run the company all month around with salaries and all the other expenses.
When the Swedish lawyer took over our case, he has tried to recover the money we were missing by then from our payments, which was around 50.000 danish krona (around 6000 euro). And because they knew that without going to court there wasn’t too much our lawyer could do; they have never acknowledged that they have to give us this money.
On the 15th of august, last year the lawyer send them the termination letter with effective immediately, due to the impossibility of crossing the bridge for work the next day because of their missing money from previous payments. As they weren’t happy about it, as an act of revenge they have chosen to not pay us nothing from the previous month's work now getting to owe us around 160.000 danish kroner (around 15.000 euros). All this brought up a lot of problems to us as we have got stuck with so many unpaid bills, especially no payments were done to the Swedish tax agency. We have lost, our apartment in Malmo, our car, our business, but we will never lose our hope. We believe that a kick in the ass will always be a step forward in one’s life journey.
With no money, desperate and frustrated, but with a positive attitude, we have tried to find a solution in recovering our money and we were hoping for a pro bono lawyer who could represent us in the Danish court, this being our only option to be able to solve this problem.
To find a pro bono lawyer was hard, better said impossible, so we said it is time to leave everything behind and find the way and the solution to get us back on our feet. But things are never easy, especially when you must deal with the Swedish government. Because of unpaid taxes and with almost 100.000 Swedish kroner debt to tax, the Swedish tax agency sent us in bankruptcy to Malmo court.
Because they have sued the company, it makes me and my sister direct responsible for everything the company owes to other creditors, like the Swedish tax agency. The amount of stress we feel when financial background its made, when creditors are coming knocking your door to recover the money, or when you speak with the appointed attorney for bankruptcy estate and when you don’t have anyone on your side to help and guide through all this process; when you find yourself in a situation like this, more than that, when you know it's not even your fault, it's very hard to be measured in words.
We now just want to be able to pay all the debts back so we can close this chapter once and for all. Only like this, we will be able to focus our attention on what truly matters and not to be stuck in a place/situation for maybe another two years. We know that even we couldn't manage to expose her in front of the law enforcement agencies, this will have to stop at some point, as our case isn't the only one. Someone will have the necessary resources to take this to an end.
We have decided to write this letter to you also as a life lesson for others who might find themselves in the same situation like us, hoping they won’t allow themselves to make same mistakes as us and they will be protecting themselves and their rights better than we did and because we desperately need your donations. The smallest donation will make a difference for us so don’t think a dollar or 5 will be to less to donate. We will so much appreciate every penny you are willing to donate in order to help us and we will forever be grateful for all your help and know this…WE WILL PAY IT FURTHER to others in need!
We thank you so much for taking the time to read our story and we send our warm thoughts to all of you!
Love,
Cristiana and Angela
Organizer
Cristiana Iacob
Organizer
Malmö, Sweden
