Am I Personally Liable for this Business Debt?

[tertiary3]

What is the name of your state? California

I used to be an officer at a company that sold things on a major online auction website. After more than a year of good business, things went sour due to bad management (I'm sorry!) and the company left the major online auction website with quite a large amount of unpaid fees. The amount has been sent to a collections agency and they are now going after me personally because I used my name to register our major online auction website account, thus signing the user agreement in my personal name. I have proof, however, that the major online auction website knew we were conducting business as a corporation and they specifically requested corporate documentation and addressed collections letters to the company.

My question is: Can the major online auction website come after me personally for selling fees?

Tertiary3

 

[C M Chase]

I think that might all depend on what the user agreement says. Do you have a copy of it? It might state in there "if I sign this, I will be responsible", in which case, you signed it...and would be responsible.

Signing your personal name to business debts is sometimes tricky. If you put a personal guarantee on something (which is what it's typically called in biz credit), then you are saying, basically, 'if anything happens to this company, I will take it upon myself to right this debt'. Unfortunately, people don't realize this when they're signing their names.

You might try and get a copy of that user agreement and analyze it line by line to see where your responsibility falls.