He said that in most cases where a company announces a shock liquidation, a natural disaster or death of the director had been the cause.

Mr Vartelas said “insolvency creeps in slowly”.

“Insolvency is something that you can see, you report on, and then it’s best to act on that.”

Creditors in attendance at the meeting in Melbourne were furious.

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One of those was Tony Rallis, who flew down from Sydney for the meeting. Mr Rallis said his company transferred $160,000 to Appster 12 days before the liquidation was announced.

The liquidator said it was his job to "represent creditors" and those clients who paid money to Appster in the last two to three weeks were in a position to take their own legal action against the directors.

"In Tony’s position, having paid the money in the last two to three weeks before announcing insolvency, it’s highly unlikely that Tony will not succeed," said Mr Vartelas.

Mr Vartelas said there were further former clients of Appster who were in a similar situation.

“Tony is a red flag. There are another two or three people like Tony in the same boat," he said.

Mr Vartelas described creditor Ross Britton, also in attendance, as an “amber flag”.

Mr Britton had engaged Appster to build an app that assists companies deliver freight.

He said he paid Appster $250,000 and after “thirty iterations” has received no workable product.

Mr Britton has spent the last three weeks engaging lawyers to obtain the code work from Appster.

Appster founder Mark McDonald attended the creditors meeting by telephone. Josiah Humphrey did not attend.

The liquidator is expected to release a three month report in February to give the creditors an overview of what went wrong with Appster.

“Some of these issues will be addressed in the report,” Mr Vartelas said.

Creditors said they were told inside the meeting that $300,000 was taken from clients soon before the liquidation was announced with one large payment taken ten days prior to the announcement and the other just five days.

"They claimed that it all went on general expenses such as wages and renting. But the wages were due to be paid on the Friday for the fortnight weren't paid and according to their own report, wages were $80-$90,000 per calendar month," " said one creditor who requested anonymity.

Where has that $300,000 gone in five days?

Creditor

"So where has that $300,000 gone in five days?"

Another creditor said there were allegations raised in the meeting of a "big payment" to an employee.

Speaking after the meeting, another creditor who requested anonymity described Mr McDonald's behaviour in the meeting as "stonewalling".

"There was an awful lot of 'I don't have access to that information' from Mr McDonald," he said.

Mr McDonald and Mr Humphrey were contacted for comment.