No one chasing rogue debt firm

Home Office figures out last week showing a 50% drop in arrests over the past decade in England and Wales haven’t gone down well with victims of Corporate Litigation Services.

I’ve been telling how this company claimed it could help small businesses chase unpaid debts, but took upfront fees and then disappeared.

This sham was a trading name of CLS Central Ltd, run by 35-year-old Ben Reynolds. Among its many victims was a sawmill business outside Peterborough.

“What disgusts me the most is that nobody did anything to shut down, regulate or curtail them,” said partner Emma Hakes, who paid CLS £3,000 to chase a debt.

“That’s despite me reporting this to Action Fraud, Companies House, trading standards, local police in my area and in London and Peterborough where CLS had registered offices.

“All I got were words to the effect of ‘what can we do? There is so much of it going on’.”

Action Fraud, which receives around one million fraud allegations a year, told me it will not be investigating this case.

It said: “We have to maximise our resources where there is the best chance of a successful investigative outcome.” SCARPERED Ben Reynolds