A dodgy satellite TV warranty company from Norwich has been forced into compulsory liquidation after watchdogs launched a probe into their business practices.

Satellite Protection Services Limited, was based in Sackville Place, off Magdalen Street and made unsolicited calls throughout the UK and Channel Islands offering to fix or repair satellite TV equipment in the event of breakdown in return for a renewable ongoing annual subscription of £60.

The company, which traded as Satellite Service, encouraged potential customers to believe that the calls came from Sky or that the company was closely associated with Sky. In fact the company had no connection with Sky.

The directors were 25-year-old Kevin Francis Bowyer, Joe Darren Lloyd, 22, and Daniel Philip Pye, 25, all from Norwich.

A probe by the Companies Investigation Branch (CIB) of the Insolvency Service revealed the company failed to comply with relevant distance selling regulations when it failed to inform customers of their right to cancel their agreements within the statutory cooling off period, and did not provide customers with the registered name of the company or its registered or geographic address.

At the time of the investigation it was telling customers its address was PO Box 749, Bognor Regis, PO21 9BG.

A spokeswoman for the Insolvency Service said: “The company selected telephone numbers for its calls from telephone directories making no attempt to comply with Regulation 21 of The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) 2003 which prohibits the making of unsolicited sales telephone calls to persons registered with the Telephone Preference Service.

“Although the company offered to replace irreparable equipment with “new” equipment, in fact replacement equipment was not new but was second-hand or re-conditioned.

“The combination of misleading phone calls, failure to inform customers of their statutory rights to cancel, failure to comply with regulations for the telephone preference service led to CIB (CIB) presenting a petition to wind-up the company in the public interest and in the interim obtained an order appointing the Official Receiver as provisional liquidator of the company.”

Information from the investigation was also referred to the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The spokeswoman added: “As provisional liquidator the Official Receiver put in place significant changes to the company's sales and administrative systems and this enabled the company's business to be continued under his supervision thereby preserving the assets of the company pending the hearing of the petition.”

The company did not finally contest the making of the winding-up order.

Richard Toone and Kevin Murphy of Chantrey Vellacott DFK have been appointed joint liquidators of the company by the Secretary of State and will be responsible for realising and distributing the assets of the company, which has 8,500 customers.


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