Lancashire Publishing Company Shut Down For Scamming Businesses
Rose Garland Limited
A publishing company which made misleading claims about its circulation figures, and demanded payment for advertisements never placed, has been wound up in the High Court following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
Rose Garland Limited, based in Heywood, Lancashire, claimed to publish ‘awareness’ booklets covering subjects such as road safety, fire prevention and drug awareness. The company sold advertising space in the booklets to small businesses and organisations throughout the UK between October 2006 and November 2009, and had more than 5000 customers.
The inquiry by the Insolvency Service’s Companies Investigation Branch (CIB) found that Rose Garland had been cold-calling potential advertisers, offering them advertising space based on highly exaggerated claims about circulation figures. The investigation revealed that:
- One customer was told that 250,000 copies of the booklet containing his advertisement would be handed out to the police, fire brigade and ambulance staff and copies placed in casualty wards. The enquiry showed that only 6,500 copies of the booklets had ever been printed and the low distribution and poor quality made them of little or no commercial benefit to the advertisers.
- The company aggressively pursued businesses for payment even though no order for advertising had been placed, and sent out a “legal letter” threatening legal proceedings which it had obtained on the internet, despite never intending to take legal action.
- Despite an absence of complete trading records the investigation found that Rose Garland had taken more than £1 million during the course of its trading, from more than 5,000 customers.
CIB Investigations Supervisor Alex Deane said:
“This case should act as a reminder to businesses to remain wary of anyone who cold calls, asking potential customers to place advertisements in walls planners, diaries, children’s fund books and other similar publications.”
For more information about rogue publishing companies and other scams visit the Companies Investigations Branch section of the Insolvency Service website at: http://www.insolvency.gov.uk
Topics: advertising, booklet, CIB, Governance, government, Lancashire, leaflet, publications, publishing, rogue, Rose Garland, scam, United Kingdom
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