Five directors of a rogue security firm whose salesmen preyed on vulnerable pensioners including an 82-year-old Perthshire woman have been banned from running a business for nearly 40 years.
The company, SAS Fire and Security Ltd, operated in Scotland for several years before moving south of the border when its unscrupulous methods came to light.
In 2010 employee Francis Sinclair was jailed for cheating a pensioner out of £3,000. Perth Sheriff Court heard Sinclair induced the woman to pay £6,850 for an alarm system worth £3,850. He told her to write out a further £3,000 cheque, payable to him, for “monitoring and maintenance”.
When he was caught out, he said he felt justified because his employers had owed him an outstanding commission, an excuse his own solicitor described as “warped”.
But it later emerged similar shady tactics were widespread at the firm. Two years after the Perth Sheriff Court case, company bosses David Diaz and brother Ludovik Black were convicted of unfair commercial practices at London’s Hillingdon Council.
They cold-called potential buyers and persuaded them to allow a salesman to visit their home and offer a security alarm for £1.
During the visit they would tell the customers that to get the so-called free device, it was necessary to spend thousands more on a “monitoring contract”. The court heard they also lied and made inaccurate claims to coerce their targets into buying the devices.
After Diaz and Black were convicted in 2012, the council successfully applied for an order to freeze their assets and stop them from spending or covering up any of the cash they made from their scams.
But legal officers caught them making payments into family accounts in order to hide some of the money they had gained illegally.
This year Diaz, Black and associate Gary McVey were jailed for failing to comply with the order.
Now the trio, along with fellow directors John Davies and Roger Waring, have been banned from acting as directors for a total of 39 and a half years.
It follows a major investigation into the firm by the UK Government’s Insolvency Service. The company, which had nearly 7,000 customers, has since been wound up.
Insolvency Service spokesman Ken Beasley said: “Many of the SAS’s customers were elderly or vulnerable and the sales tactics the company employed exploited this.
“I would urge anyone who has been cold-called by telephone to carefully consider whether the offer made is reasonable and/or plausible.
“I would also advise caution in allowing sales representatives to attend in your home and, if possible, to ensure a friend or relative is present.”