Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Indian health scam by any other name
It takes a particularly sick kind of person to fleece those in ill health – but that’s exactly what one brand of foreign charlatans is doing.
Based in India, they use highpressure coldcallers to trick victims into buying expensive quack cures.
The latest outfit accused of the scam is Green Shield Wellness.
The Government has petitioned the High Court to have it shut down in the public interest in a case to be heard this month.
On its website, Green Shield insists: “Our products are reliable and affordable because at Green Shield Wellness we care.”
It is the subject of numerous complaints on the who-called. co.uk website.
“My 93-year-old father was sold tablets over the phone and they took £300,” wrote one.
Another posted: “My elderly mother of 85 received a call today from a man claiming to be her healthcare professional.”
A third revealed how she told them she was registered with the Telephone Preference Service but they rang twice more regardless. Among these alarming posts, I did at least get a smile from one who enjoyed wasting the time of a Green Shield coldcaller, saying: “Nearly a record for me, kept her talking for 23 minutes.”
Green Shield’s director Kunal Shah gives a London mailforwarding service as his address but lives in India, according to Companies House. He has not replied to my questions.
An earlier incarnation of this scam was Elbon Wellbeing, run by Elvino De Souza, 49, of Goa.
It made £3.7million over six years flogging “health” junk before being shut down in the public interest last October.
Among the victims was the father of Caroline Hooton of Nottingham, who was persuaded to buy more tubes of a gel to reduce joint pain than he could ever use in his lifetime.
She said: “It’s fantastic they face being shut down – until they set up again under a new name.”
Colin Cronin of the Insolvency Service said: “The sales methods used by the company were manipulative and wholly unfair.”
Souza Healthcare
Ltd was also put into compulsory liquidation.
It targeted the elderly with “lengthy and unsolicited” sales pitches from Goa and Mumbai.
Gary Fitzgerald, chief executive of Action on Elder Abuse, said: “The law just doesn’t treat this problem seriously enough. Successive governments have ignored the reality of the problem for older people for too long, expecting them to protect themselves.”