BULLY SKIP BOSS PUT IN HIS PLACE
Skip-hire company boss Brian Place had a particularly nasty way of extracting extra money from his customers – he refused to remove his skips from outside their homes.
In one case, he initially removed a skip only to return days later with another one full of someone else’s rubbish, which he dumped on the customer’s driveway, demanding £1,200 to take it away.
After the resident refused, Place put a second skip outside their home and increased his demand to £1,600.
Three customers paid Place out of desperation, handing him from £250 to £600, even though they had already paid for the skip-hire service.
Two others refused to pay any more and were lumbered with the skips for months.
Now 43-year-old Place, who operated across Surrey and Hampshire, has been convicted of aggressive commercial practices.
He was fined £1,730, while a £4,886 fine for the same offences was slapped on his company, 1st Place Grab & Skip Hire Ltd.
Legal costs brought the total bill for Place and his company to more than £31,000.
“Intimidating tactics of this kind simply won’t be tolerated in Surrey,” said Denise Turner-Stewart, Surrey County Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Safety after the prosecution at Guildford crown court.
■ In a separate case of a threatening rogue trader, builder Jason Griffin took money for jobs that he never finished or, in one case, never even started.
He sent a message to one distraught customer reading: “F*** off and find someone else.” Teesside crown court was told that Griffin, 38, was a co caine addict with health problems.
He got a sixmonth suspended jail sentence and was ordered to pay compensation of £4,610.