Jeanette Stevenson, instructed by Shuby Murria of Newton Law Practice, obtains financial penalty for her client charged with 3 counts of engaging in unfair, misleading and aggressive commercial practice.
The client, who was investigated by The National Trading Standards E-Crime Team, was charged with 3 counts on an indictment contrary to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. He was accused of running a mobile phone unlocking service over 6 months in 2018 in which the Crown say he acted in a manner which was on count 1 Unfair practice, count 2 misleading and count 3 aggressive commercial practice.
The Crown claimed that over 6 months he had taken card payments from the consumers over his website, promising to provide the consumers with a mobile phone unlocking service allowing their mobile phones to be used on other networks. It was the Crown’s case that the defendant had taken some 4899 transactions through his website for unlocking services, only 100 of which were carried out. The Crown alleged that when a number of these consumers contacted the defendant and asked for a refund this was refused and that the defendant allegedly told consumers that if they applied for a ‘charge back’ on their credit cards, that their handset would be blacklisted or that they would be sued or bailiffs to attend their address.
The defendant had been facing a maximum of 2 years in custody and possible POCA (Proceeds of crime) proceedings. On the first day of trial at York Crown Court, Miss Stevenson was able to persuade the Crown to accept a plea to count one – engaging in an unfair commercial practice contrary to the regulations. Counts 2 and 3 were left to lie on the file and the Crown confirmed that it would not be pursuing POCA proceedings.
At sentencing, Miss Stevenson, in putting forward mitigation on behalf of her client, was able to persuade the Judge to pass a financial penalty only. The defendant received a £300 fine, ordered to pay the 12 victims the crown relied upon compensation and to pay a contribution towards the costs of the investigation.
Jeanette’s full profile: https://greatjames.co.uk/members/jeanette-stevenson/