Crackdown on health supplement conmen who target the elderly

ROGUE firms that make millions of pounds selling rip- off health supplements to the elderly, sick and vulnerable have been closed down by the Government.

Nine companies which cheated around 36,000 victims out of an estimated £10.6million have been hit.

The action was made public by Consumer Minister Andrew Griffiths to alert the elderly and their relatives to the unscrupulous firms.

They appear to be mostly based in India and buy ‘ sucker lists’ of those who have health issues such as arthritis or heart problems. They then bombard them with calls, sometimes pretending to be linked to family doctors, to sell supplements at hundreds of times the face value.

The Mail has already highlighted how scammers use the ‘sucker lists’ to deluge the vulnerable with calls and letters – advertising everything from fake clairvoyants to prize-draw scams. Letters are often delivered under Royal Mail bulkmail contracts.

Victims of the nine health supplement companies, some of whom were in their 90s, were talked into spending as much as £500 on bottles of vitamins that could be bought at a fraction of the cost. The same people were often repeatedly targeted. Evidence suggests that, often, the pills do not contain the ingredients claimed or may even be contaminated with pollutants. The Insolvency Service has been working to shut down the firms and prosecute the directors to ensure they are banned from running any other businesses. However, most of those behind the scams appear to be based overseas, specifically in India.

The Government gave the example of two linked companies, Greenlife Wellness Ltd and Naturecare Wellness Ltd, which bought data lists containing details of over-65s with joint pain concerns.

They then used offshore call centres to make unsolicited calls. Investigators found that call centre staff claimed to be ringing on behalf of doctors or other health professionals. They also rang households signed up to the Telephone Preference Service, which is supposed to prevent cold calls.

The two companies were put into compulsory liquidation in October following a petition presented by the Secretary of State, and two bosses – Nitesh Prakash Dhawan and Virendra Singh Thakur – have been banned from directorships in the UK for 14 years each.

In another example, Healthspring Wellness Product Ltd, apparently based in Newbury, Berkshire, contracted a call centre based in Mumbai to sell health supplements. It targeted those 55 and over, who were housebound or had difficulty in getting out.

Following an Insolvency Service investigation, Healthspring Wellness was wound up in the public interest in the High Court in November 2017. Registered director Vidjan Wasta was disqualified from running companies for 11 years.

Mr Griffiths said he wanted to encourage victims to report their experiences during ‘Scams Awareness Month’.

He added: ‘These shocking supplement scams are targeting thousands of the most vulnerable people in our society.’