Seller of fish overcharged and misled the vulnerable
HIS TRICKS INCLUDED OBSCURING CUSTOMERS’ VIEW OF CARD MACHINE
A DODGY fish seller who pressured elderly and vulnerable people into buying “unwanted and low quality” seafood has been ordered to repay his victims.
Adam Brown preyed on residents in ‘no-cold-calling zones’ and charged them “exorbitant” prices after using high pressure sales techniques.
Prosecutor Cameron Crowe told Newcastle Crown Court that Brown’s techniques included buying fish from supermarkets and selling it on, falsely claiming it was fresh, and delivering huge quantities of fish before charging an extortionately high price.
The court heard the 30-year-old and his associates also obtained inflated payments through a card machine by tilting it away from the customer – in one case taking £946 from someone instead of £94.
Brown, who at the time lived in Chester-le-Street , County Durham , travelled the country selling fish door to door.
Using a variety of business names – including Shore to Door Fisheries, SSRS Fisheries, Scottish Coast Finest and Scottish Coast Fisheries – Brown or his associates would target the addresses of elderly or vulnerable consumers.
Brown used a number of illegal sales techniques to exploit consumers, resulting in nearly £8,500 lost by consumers from nearly 60 transactions.
National Trading Standards said Brown’s practices included targeting addresses in ‘no-cold calling zones”, which are normally established in communities with a high number of older or more vulnerable residents.
In one instance, a witness only expected to get a few pieces of salmon and haddock. The seller packed trays of fish in the freezer and then demanded £325.
In another case, a victim agreed to buy some cod and salmon before the seller went to a van parked in the street and returned carrying an arm full of trays of fish. The victim commented that there was a lot of fish, but the seller walked straight into the kitchen and put the fish in the freezer.
The seller demanded £94, which was more than the victim wanted to spend, but by that point the victim just wanted the seller to leave the property. The witness paid by card but when she entered her PIN into the machine it was held at such an angle that she was prevented from seeing the screen properly.
When the witness checked her bank account, she saw that £946 had been debited.
A statement from one victim read out in court said: “I would like to make it clear I felt pushed and hassled. I felt I had no choice but to go through with it. I feel such an idiot.
“I felt the men were laughing at me, thinking I was a silly old woman.
“I couldn’t tell anyone in my family because I felt stupid. I had to go without new clothes for a year.”
Brown, now of Whitstable Close, Chadderton, Oldham, was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to pay £2,624.70 in compensation, which will cover the money lost by all seven victims.
At the same hearing he was sentenced to a consecutive suspended sentence of 16 weeks for theft from gaming machines.
He was also issued with a criminal behaviour order that prohibits him from selling fish and making unsolicited calls at people’s homes for the next five years.
At an earlier hearing at Teesside Crown Court Brown accepted he knowingly or recklessly engaged in commercial practices which contravened the requirements of professional diligence and materially distorted the economic behaviour of his customers.