A company trading in the field of “support publishing” has been wound-up by the High Court in Manchester. This is following an investigation by the Companies Investigation Branch (CIB) of The Insolvency Service.
Crime Prevention Advice & Information Limited (CPAI), based in Manchester, carried on business between January 2007 and November 2008 during which time it took over £850,000 from small businesses.
CIB’s investigation found that the company cold-called businesses purporting to sell advertising space in "crime prevention journals". However, the enquiry established that customers were given inaccurate and vastly inflated distribution figures for the journal which, in reality, offered no commercial benefit to the advertiser at all.
The Court heard that the company used inappropriate debt collection methods to pursue payment from businesses who had either cancelled the advertisement or who had not agreed to advertise in the first place. These included persistent, aggressive and threatening letters sometimes involving the threat of bailiffs and legal action.
Apart from the above, the Court found that the company had been abandoned, there was a lack of transparency as to who was running the company, it had failed to control the data used by its sales representatives and that it had failed to comply with various requirements under the Companies Act 1985.
The registered office of Crime Prevention Advice & Information Limited was at 23, Sherborne Street, Manchester M8 8HF but it traded latterly from Gainsborough House, 109 Portland Street, Manchester. The company was incorporated in January 2006.
