Trading standards investigation sees four sentenced for £2.2m car-matching scam

Four defendants convicted over a car matching scam that brought in more than £2.2m were sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court last week.

Panayotis Christofi, aged 30, and Craig Brannigan, 48, had set up a company called Motorshop in Barnet in 2006.

The following year, Trading Standards officers started to receive complaints about its operations.

The complainants were people advertising their cars and other vehicles for sale in local papers and car magazines. They said they had been cold called by a telesales person from Motorshop.

The complainants said they were given the impression that the salesperson was checking a database. They would then be told that the company had, say, four people in their area who wanted to buy a car like theirs.

The sellers were told they would receive the full asking price and that as the buyers had arranged finance from which they made money, they would receive an incentive such as all but £10 of the fee (typically between £49.99 and £99.99) back or a voucher for a weekend break.

But none of the complainants who contacted trading standards said they had received any interest from perspective buyers after paying the fee. Complaints to the company had led nowhere.

The sellers were also told – incorrectly – that their right to cancel within seven days did not apply as work had started immediately.

In 2008 trading standards officers started to receive similar complaints about a company trading as Motormarket in Coventry. The directors were Christofi and Brannigan, but it was run by 31-year-old Sam Dimmock. He eventually became a director.

Trading standards officers were reported to have made “numerous attempts” to resolve the complaints and advise the companies. But Consumer Direct continued to receive hundreds of complaints.

In November 2008 Christofi helped Cengiz Kemal, 31, to set up another business, Motorplace, in Leicester.

On 9 December 2008 the Yorkshire & Humber Scambusters team – helped by other agencies – executed a warrant at the Motorshop offices. A similar operation took place a month later at Motormarket’s offices.

Trading standards officers discovered that telesales staff sat at desks with only a telephone and advertisements from magazines in front of them. There were no computer terminals, suggesting that they could not have had access to a vehicle database.

The defendants admitted that the computer system, which housed a limited database, could not match buyers and sellers by location.

A survey of random customers conducted by officers during the investigation was unable to identify a single person who had successfully sold a car through the companies. Former employees also gave evidence about the company’s practices.

Three of the four defendants – Christofi, Brannigan and Dimmock – were found guilty in November 2011 of conspiracy to defraud their customers.

Early in the trial Christofi pleaded guilty to breaching consumer protection from Unfair Trading Regulations by making false claims to his customers. The others maintained their innocence.

The jury nevertheless returned guilty verdicts. It also found all four defendants guilty of transferring criminal property contrary to the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The sentences were as follows:

• Panayotis Christofi: a 30-month prison sentence and disqualification from being a company director for eight years.
• Craig Brannigan: 24 months’ imprisonment and disqualification from being a company director for eight years.
• Sam Dimmock: 18 months’ imprisonment and disqualification from being a company director for two years.
• Cengiz Kemal: an eight-month prison sentence which was suspended for two years with an order to undertake 200 hours of unpaid work.  Kemal was disqualified from being a company director for two years.

Matt Boxall, a spokesman for the Yorkshire & Humber Scambusters team, said: ‘‘These people exploited the false hope they had given their victims. It wasn’t a particularly complicated scam, a pack of lies were told to persuade as many people as they could to fork out. Many of the victims told us that they were already in financial difficulty – hence they were selling up.’’

‘’The result means that the defendants will pay for the upset caused to their thousands of victims and others. Through the confiscation process we will set about clawing back the money they made.’’