ROGUES GALLERY
I’m never afraid to name and shame rogues and this year there were some serial offenders.
King con Alexander Campbell Clark was back in business…this time as a driveway specialist. The convicted fraudster, exposed repeatedly in the Sunday Mail for 25 years, was operating as Ideal All Trades and touting for business on Rated People.
Nurse Vicky Glen, of Coatbridge, paid him a deposit for a £2900 driveway but contacted me when no work was done. Clark returned £300 she paid after I collared him.
Shamed Green Deal firm Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) called in liquidators in April. HELMS, run by Robert Skillen, were fined £200,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office for making more than six million nuisance calls. But they paid just £10,000 before going bust.
The demise of the firm left customers tied into 25-year credit agreements with their energy suppliers – despite being told their solar panels were free.
I later reported how homeowners such as Kim McKay, 54, of Coatbridge, couldn’t sell their homes as they were tied into HELMS contracts.
Kitchen boss Campbell Kane was dubbed Scampbell after taking thousands of pounds from my readers. He traded as CAM Living and Luxury Kitchens.
I told how six customers ordered kitchens but got nothing in return. Luxury Kitchens promised to issue refunds in January. But there’s now a proposal to strike the company off at Companies House. Big firms were also in my sights in 2016. I reported a worrying new spin on the Whirlpool tumble dryer scandal when owners were being forced to wait more than 11 months for repairs.
Worse still, some of those who’d been lucky enough to have dryers fixed were shocked to find they also malfunctioned.
Vodafone were the most complained-about mobile network in the UK, despite investing £15million in 2016 to improve their customer service. And my readers were lining up to blast the telecoms giant.
Regulator Ofcom fined the firm £4.6million after uncovering misselling, inaccurate billing and poor complaints handling procedures.
ScottishPower were also on my radar after they came under fire from watchdog Ofgem. They agreed to cough up £18million in April after fielding one million complaints after introducing a new IT system.
One of the many cases I grilled them over was that of Peter Allison, 31, of Stranraer, who had debt collectors set on him despite closing his account in 2014.
ScottishPower finally wrote off the spurious £1200 bill and paid £100 to say sorry in August.