Seven men working at an emergency plumbing firm based in Leicestershire have been sentenced after ripping off customers, some of whom were elderly, and boasting about it in a WhatsApp group.
Customers of Faster Response Limited, later Prestige Property Solutions, made more than 150 complains to Trading Standards between 2016 and 2017.
Leicester Crown Court heard how victims were left with extortionate bills for shoddy workmanship, often with unnecessary work carried out to inflate the cost. The firm targeted seniors by advertising OAP discounts, only to bill them as much as 10 times the going rate. The prosecution said that some were intimidated into paying sums beyond their means.
Reporting in the Derby Telegraph revealed a number of examples of the plumbing firm’s egregious treatment of customers. In one case, a 92 year old woman was charged £3245 for a leaking bath tap, which involved the unnecessary removal of the bath.
Another customer was billed nearly £1300 for a job involving a part costing less than £18.
Other examples included a woman whose bathroom had flooded and was told to pay £595 for a simple fix that should have cost less than £200.
In July 2017, the BBC programme Watchdog aired a segment on Faster Response’s outrageous overcharging, after which it ceased to trade. However the firm’s directors, Russell Canfield and Liam Cuffe, subsequently opened under the name Prestige Property Solutions and continued their rogue trading.
The BBC reported that while the Watchdog episode aired, defendants texted each other on WhatsApp. Some of the texts, which were eventually recovered by the police, included:
“Says we’ve been ripping off pensions [sic] for years lol.”
Russell Canfield replied: “I know that’s wrong mate its everyone we ripped off not prejudice of age lol.”
Of the seven men convicted of fraudulent trading, three were given custodial sentences: Russell Canfield, 44, was jailed for 40 months; Benjamin Molloy, 33, received 27 months; and John Stott, 38, received 24 months.
The other staff members – Stephen Rice (46), Richard Jones (38), Zackary Morgan (21), and Leighton Costello (27) – were all given a 15-month suspended sentence and will have to perform 200 hours of unpaid work.
