£150,000 fines and costs for ‘overcharging, pressure selling and cold calls’
30th October 2018

A home improvement company and three directors have been hit with over £150,000 in fines and costs after a court heard how they vastly overcharged vulnerable homeowners and used pressure selling and consistent cold calls.

Christopher Davies and Paul Birks, both of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and Jason Walchester of Stoke-on-Trent, who traded as Ecoseal Home Improvements Ltd, were each fined £5,000 at Stafford Crown Court and ordered to pay £5,000 costs after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing. The company was fined £35,000 and ordered to pay nearly £93,000 costs.

The court heard that complainants were vulnerable either due to age or health reasons, which the directors knew to be the case. They were then sold products at vastly inflated prices. The company had been previously advised and warned on three separate occasions by the Trading Standards team and had even signed an undertaking to stop any aggressive or pressured sales practices.

Documents obtained during the investigation showed that sales staff were told ‘65 per cent of appointments are made after the fifth objection.’

Ecoseal ignored warnings and carried on with its practices over a number of years and staff could spend up to two-and-a-half hours in victims’ homes.

In one case, a victim with a diagnosed brain injury paid £18,000 for replacement windows when experts said that the job was only worth £7,100. Another victim with memory issues signed a total of five credit agreements which accounted for 25% of her income over eight years. An expert for the prosecution said that after examination of the documents, they considered it was most likely not her signature.

In other cases, the price charged or quoted for home improvement works was as much as almost 400 per cent over the reasonable market practice.

The company was given two years to pay the £149,595.23.

Staffordshire County Council’s communities leader Gill Heath later said: “The company directors failed to provide protection to their customers from unfair trading practices.

“They have shown a complete indifference to the vulnerability of its customers who they overcharged on numerous occasions. The directors had been warned by our Trading Standards team about inappropriate trading practices on several occasions prior to this series of offences.” 

Picture (courtesy of Stoke Sentinel): l to r, Davis, Birks, Walchester