WE’RE WATCHING YOU

A RIP-OFF company that marketed an expensive and unnecessary domestic appliance repair scheme has been shut down by the High Court and ordered into liquidation. Premier Protect Holdings Limited, which also called itself Premier Protect 365, used high pressure phone calls to sell costly service plans for white goods and TVs. Its salesforce even per- suaded elderly or vulner- able customers into giving their card details to renew plans they had never even taken out.

The Mail on Sunday warned against the company in 2020, after a 95-year-old woman was charged £195 for repair cover on her washing machine. I found then that although it used a London address, the company was really based in Brighton. Neither the company nor its director Abdelhak Akayour cooperated with the recent investigation by the Insolvency Service. Chief Investigator Lynda Copson said: ‘We have acted to ensure this appalling company has been shut down.’

I reported in 2020 that Akayour had previously run Xmarketing Limited and Protect Your Bubble Limited. Both were compulsorily struck off by Companies House. He also ran Total Motor Aid Limited, which was shut down by the High Court for non-payment of taxes. Akayour’s current company is Home Protect 365 Limited. It failed to file accounts legally due over a year ago and proceedings have begun to dissolve it. Akayour uses several addresses but my enquiries show he lives in Worthing in West Sussex, where I found three County Court Judgments against him, as well as judgments against two of his businesses. Surely it is time for him to be banned as a company director.