A CROOKED cleaning boss has been found guilty of carpet-bagging elderly customers who were tricked by a bogus special offer.
Adam Vallier’s companies cold called customers all over Devon and offered to clean two carpets for £19 or £20 but then charged them up to 22 times more.
Vallier and his staff told customers their carpets were either bigger or dirtier than expected and charged large amounts for extra work.
Elderly clients from Exmouth, Teignmouth, Newton Abbot, and Torbay told Exeter Crown Court how they ended up paying much more than the £19 offer.
An analysis of payments made to Vallier’s Dorset-based firms showed only a small proportion of his customers paid £20 or less and one forked out £449.
The two companies were paid £480,000 by customers using bank and credit cards between April 2014 and April 2016 out of which Vallier paid himself £54,000.
Vallier, aged 34, of Hennington Road, Pokesdown, Bournemouth was found guilty of two counts of fraud and one of misleading customers.
His two companies, A Star and Premier Carpet Cleaning were found guilty of the same offences.
Vallier admitted making misleading claims about membership of a trade organisation on company notepaper.
Both Vallier and the companies were cleared of failing to give clients their 14-day statutory right to cancel contracts after the jury were shown receipts, signed by customers, in which a box was ticked saying that had been offered the chance to cancel.
Recorder Mr Adam Vaitilingam, QC, adjourned the case for pre-sentence reports and released Vallier on bail but warned him this does not mean he will not receive a jail sentence.
During a week-long trial the prosecution said the £19 offer was a dishonest form of bait marketing intended to lure in customers so they could be sold more expensive services.
They were then charged far more than they expected for ’deep cleaning’ having larger carpets, or the use of supposedly expensive cleaning fluids and treatments.
In some cases clients were not told the price until the work had been carried out and others were told they needed extra work because they owned pets or had cream coloured carpets.
One customer in Teignmouth was charged £449, an 86-year-old woman from Newton Abbot was charged £150 and others from Exmouth and Paignton £240 and £300.
The A Star’s website made false claims about the technical qualifications of their staff and its notepaper claimed falsely they were a member of a trade association and were approved to use a variety of products.
Trading standards officers traced card payments to both companies which showed total income of £487,000 from 1,650 customers of whom only 68 paid £20 or less.
Vallier said he and his operatives always explained the scale of charges to clients before work was done and had not overcharged anyone.