First, it emerged that the start-up company hired to operate extra ferries as part of no deal Brexit planning has no ships.
Now, new questions are are being asked about the readiness of Seaborne Freight to handle the £13.8m contract after it turned out that terms and conditions on its website appeared to be intended for a food delivery firm.
It is the responsibility of the customer to thoroughly check the supplied goods before agreeing to pay for any meal/order, read part of the text on the company’s website.
Another section, which appeared to be constructed with a view more to mitigating against the impact of prank pizza orders than transporting goods across some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, warned: Users are prohibited from making false orders through our website.
Seaborne Freight (UK) Limited reserves the right to seek compensation through legal action for any losses incurred as the result of hoax delivery requests and will prosecute to the full extent of the law, it added.
Ridicule was also heaped on Seaborne’s privacy terms, which stated: Members hold freedom to express themselves in their feedback. Although your intellectual freedom is respected, [Business name] reserves the right to remove from our website any material deemed threatening, immoral, racist, inaccurate, malicious, defamatory, in bad taste or illegal.
Among those criticising the company after the curious language on the terms and conditions was first pointed out by Twitter users was Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, who said: Seaborne Freight. No ships, no trading history and website T&Cs copied and pasted from a takeaway delivery site.
Other signs that the website may have been cobbled together included a portal login section which was an image of username and password boxes rather than an actual means of logging in.