Beware: "Wyn & Dave"

[Ashley_Price]

Okay, so for about the first time in 10 years I appear to have been scammed.

Wyn & Dave Ltd purchased a lot (over £1000) of office supplies just before Christmas, then disappeared. We found out today the address they wanted the items delivered to was a "self storage facility" who also acted as a mail drop. I called the facility this morning and sure enough Wyn and Dave left around Christmas.

Annoyingly, their credit rating through Experian showed them as a good risk and can give them "the maximum credit".

There seems to be several different "Wyn & Dave" businesses - selling garlic, flowers, toner, posters and also "Wyn and Dave Promotions" (all at the same or similar registered address).

I have our legal beagles (and Bibby Financial) looking into this more for me, so we've discovered more information about them, but I thought I'd give everyone a heads up.

Normally, I am not caught out, but I was in the middle of purchasing the business and so had lots on my mind, and, as I said above, I did check their credit rating.

 

[john1989]

Seems odd for a company that is out to scam people to bother filing accounts.
Kay Franklin is the current director. Is this who placed the order?

 

[Ashley_Price]

Unfortunately not, John. Doing a lot of researching they seem to change their registered address very regularly, and unsurprisingly always to what appear to be mail forwarding or virtual office addresses. One of their registered addresses comes up as having over 2000 other businesses using the same postcode!

 

[john1989]

I'm looking on CH, and they have changed their registered address, but it's not very regularly. The changes were:

• 27/03/13
• 03/12/14
• 28/10/15

Have you checked the address shown on the incorporation documents? This appears to be a residential address.

 

[Ashley_Price]

I have my legal beagles dealing with it now. There are several addresses over time for Kay Franklin as well.

But they appear to run several different businesses with lots of different addresses (four so far).

 

[Ashley_Price]

Also submitted it to ActionFraud.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Sadly, even with reasonably precaution you will occasionally get turned over. What I do wonder here is whether it was actually this company who did it, or a form of identity theft?

 

[Mr A P Davies]

Sound like a handy pair of clients.

 

[Ashley_Price]

I've had a call from another office supplies firm and now they are trying to order as "YPS Construction" in London E5 (to differentiate them from any other, perfectly reliable "YPS Construction")

 

[Wavecrest Ltd]

Sounds like it could be a long or short firm fraud. We had a similar situation a few years ago. Got a call from a company in Scotland asking to store goods at our warehouse. Checked their credit and all looked good. Turnover over £1.5 million, certified accounts etc.We were getting deliveries in from all round the country. Many from very well known companies. The goods were going back out after a few days. Then after a few weeks we got a call from one of the companies that had delivered goods into us to say they had found out the company director shown on the accounts was in fact a woman living in a council house in Glasgow on benefits. It would appear the company had filed fake accounts with Companies House to get a good credit rating. Long story short the police managed to track down the brains behind the fraud (a serial offender it turned out) and he got 4.5 years

 

[Ashley_Price]

Just wanted to bump this back to the top, because today I've had two other office supplies firms contact me about Wyn and Dave and how they were scammed.

 

[richofwombwell]

What did they "buy" from you ? Was it toner cartridges. ?

 

[Ashley_Price]

What did they "buy" from you ? Was it toner cartridges. ?

Toner, address labels, paper, general stationery stuff.

 

[Clinton]

This was recently in the news (yes, I read the strangest news. Not for me the BBC News or the Daily Telegraph )

Sorry to hear about your problem, Ashley.

 

[Ashley_Price]

The problem is it costs relatively little to set up a limited company, so if the conmen (and women) are earning quite a bit from their activities, and having limited company status gives them the appearance of a legitimate company, then it's a small price to pay. Their company gets wound up one day, they set up another one the next day. Or, more likely, (like those behind Wyn & Dave Ltd and in the attached by @Clinton ) have several companies operating at once anyway.

 

[richofwombwell]

Shame, have a look on ebay for the toner cartridges round the areas the "businesses" are based, where they original or compatible ?

 

[Emma Fryer]

I had a similar thing BUT the police have been involved and the people concerned are in court and it's all ongoing.

 

[james me]

This company is the victim of a rogue employee.

 

[john1989]

This company is the victim of a rogue employee.

Care to elaborate?

 

[joannebux1977]

Hi does anyone have a contact number fr this company please?