D&G says the calls were from Domestic Assist and, in February, told the company it was going to sue. Three days later, it alleges, director Matthew Scott’s partner set up Home Care Assist, which continued the same practices.
The defence team has countered that misleading calls had been dealt with and four staff had been sacked.
But Scott was this month given a six-month suspended jail sentence and ordered to pay £42,000 costs for contempt of court, having failed to produce certain call recordings and other evidence. He is now debarred from defending the case.
Asked about the contempt order, D&G said: “We are pleased the court has recognised the rogue behaviour of Matthew Scott from Domestic Assist Ltd. We believe his organisation has been harassing our customers and bringing the appliance care industry into disrepute.
“The judgement sends a strong message to others behaving this way to think again and stop. This sort of behaviour is unethical, illegal, and has no place in our industry.”
Case 2
D&G claims callers from Global Appliance Care in Brighton and Home Appliance TV Care in Chichester “consistently” gave the impression they were from customers’ existing warranty firm.
It was, says D&G, a “confidence trick” deploying fraudulent misrepresentation.
D&G says the firms caused it a loss of £6.3 million and called 348,000 of its clients. The companies refute the claims.
HATVC had as a director for a short time Bill Burey, whose previous companies include Nuisance Call Prevention Service and Call Stopping Service. Both have now been dissolved.
Burey, along with directors and staff including sales trainer and DJ Casey Field are alleged to have “schooled, coached and encouraged” staff to make false representations. Field also trained staff at Service Box.
GAC and HATV deny wrongdoing in their legal response.
They argue the “well and truly f[*]cked” email, which they say was sent by Field, was selectively edited by D&G.
DJ and sales trainer Casey Field
The full message, they say, shows her expressing concern about a staff member’s behaviour.
They say D&G’s case is based on “unjustifiable inferences and a selective presentation of the evidence”.
Case 3
IFLM traded under names including Domestic Assure Guard and Assure Guard. D&G claims staff would give the impression they were from D&G or, in other cases, would criticise D&G or claim it had gone out of business.
IFLM denies this but said it had offered to remove the word “Domestic” from its business names in an attempt to settle the dispute.
IFLM’s lawyer said the company would be “vigorously defending” the claims: “My clients acknowledge the dominant position in the market which D&G have. However, their actions are in the spirit of fair competition.”
Case 4
In the case of Service Box, D&G claims a script instructs staff to tell customers they were calling from a sister firm of D&G, that D&G had stopped trading, or that their goods were no longer covered by D&G.
Brighton-based Service Box said the script “appears to be a fabrication.”
Loadsamoney: Apparent Service Box staff wave £50 notes
D&G claims that it was making fraudulent misrepresentations like the other cases. Service Box said it was “vigorously defending” the “spurious and unfounded allegations”.
It denied having had any dealings with defendants in the other cases except for GAC’s DJ’ing Casey Field.
Careless says he has no day-to-day involvement in Service Box.
This is the only one of the lawsuits that has been previously reported.
The cases are expected to come to court next year.
