London company that scammed elderly customers out of £128,000 gets shut down
An east London company that scammed elderly customers out of thousands of pounds has been shut down by the courts.
GoNutri, a health supplements supplier, wound up in court on 12 February for trading with a lack of commercial probity, objectionable trading practices and improper sales techniques.
Confidential enquiries led to an investigation by the government’s Insolvency Service, which handles company misconduct. The investigation revealed GoNutri had conned roughly £128,000 ($166,000) from unsuspecting customers.
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The Insolvency Service established that GoNutri, found to be registered to a residential address, had used a call centre abroad to target 409 customers, with an average age of 85, between May 2016 and June 2018.
Sales operatives from these call centres used cold calls and high-pressure sales techniques to coerce victims into buying vitamins and mineral supplements, the Insolvency Agency said. They also occasionally mislead victims into thinking they represented the NHS or UK health services.
GoNutri was also found to have sold products at inflated prices, with the same item selling for anywhere between £11 and £49.99. On top of this, some customers were told they hadn’t paid for items and were forced to pay multiple times for a single product, while others were sent items they hadn’t requested before being “hounded” into paying for them.
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One victim, who was 91-years-old at the time, reported they were pestered with calls saying their card payment hadn’t worked. When the customer asked the call centre to send a bill in the post instead, operatives refused. This led the 91-year-old to write another cheque, although later on the customer found out the bill had been paid the first time round.
And in another example, an 84-year-old was persuaded to specifically make three orders because it was only after the third instalment that they would feel the physical benefits of the product.
GoNutri’s hearing was held before Mr Justice Snowden who made the winding up order in the public interest. The company has now been shut down and an officer of the Insolvency Service has been appointed as liquidator.
