25 miles away: another firm’s legacy of distress

JUST 25 miles down the road from Phyderma is the last known address of another junk mail operation, Promondo.

Based in the village of Carros, near the French-Italian border, Promondo received £6,683 of Bernard’s money.

It sent letters and catalogues under the brand name Vitamail. One letter sent to Bernard claimed he had won a ‘1st Prize Cheque’ for £15,000. It said he needed to order something from the accompanying catalogue to receive the cheque, and suggested that he buy two bottles of ‘circulation cream’ for £34.80. When Money Mail reached the warehouse where the company was once based, a bus driving school had taken over the building.

But locals remember all too well the damage the firm caused its victims.

The Association Syndicale Libre du Lotissement Industriel de Carros acts as a local trade union. A front-desk representative says the organisation had become a point of contact for Promondo victims who had lost money.

She adds: ‘I have never forgotten the distressed phone calls we received on a regular basis about that business. Some of them were in tears as they asked if we could do anything about it.’

Marseille lawyer Isabelle Terrin says in 2010 she successfully represented one 83-year-old Promondo victim who had lost €5,000. The pensioner, Arlette Zinah, had been tricked into thinking she’d won a cash prize worth €215,000 — she just needed to order some items from the catalogue to claim it.

In 2010, a Court of Appeal judge ordered the firm to pay the pensioner €188,917, which included interest from when the proceedings began in 2008, as well as her

legal costs. Ms Terrin says she tried to help dozens more clients who had been targeted by similar scams, but was unsuccessful.

She says: ‘These companies aim to trick people who are usually older or vulnerable, sometimes sick and maybe do not have good memories. I stopped taking on these cases two or three years ago because I realised it was impossible to win.’

It is not known when Promondo left Carros, but a company called SOGIF Holdought ing AG bought the Vitamail logo in 2011 when it launched in Baar, Switzerland. The firm went into liquidation in May 2015.