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I almost advertised with Chestnut House on their 'charity' wall planner for Derbyshire, until I found out the following information. There is a lot of history to this company, so please read all of the information before you even consider advertising with them.

The exact same people ran the notorious Liverpool based charity scam company - Barrington House Publishing, it was closed down by the DTI, moved and changed names to Barrington House Corporation Ltd. Closed down by the DTI again and changed names to Hamilton Forbes and moved offices again. Then closed down and have moved again and changed names to Chestnut House. All the previous companies worked for a charity the Children’s Research Fund but Chestnut House work on behalf of the Honeyrose Foundation, which is also a charity. Peter Lyons started the original company (he is a millionaire from charity scamming) and each time the company has closed down and re-opened the directors and people running it were and may still be employees of Peter Lyons. The new directors are again a previous manager of Lyons and her live in partner. All the closures have left large sums of money owing to the VAT and TAX. Each closure and re-opening has had the same workforce (reps)and have taken some of the admin staff too. This company has reps who have travelled with him from company to company, who are also very wealthy. Peter Lyons has been photographed by the Mirror Newspaper at the premises of Chestnut House. Lots of the employees when working for Barrington’s and Hamilton’s' had company cars! And it is known they earn 25-30% commission for their sales. They are telling customers that the charity wall planners are for dying kids all over the country, when in fact the Honeyrose Foundation are a charity for the over 40’s in St Helens and Merseyside. Please note also that a sister company called Mckenzie Campbell which was also closed down and re-opened as Price Chamberlain has since closed down too and was run by Peter Lyons brother. If this business was run correctly why do they keep getting closed down? Why were the DTI ever involved? Why do people get threatening letters if it’s working for a charity? Why is the charity commission board letting companies do this when charities are involved? If you are contacted by this NEW company ask your self WHY should I help someone get rich on the back of a needy cause (the charity).
If you want to know anymore read this http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/investigates/2007/04/05/conman-lyon-back-on-prowl-89520-18861963/

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There are loads of business scams out there if this is one (I guess we need to make clear this is alleged unless this was actually all prove), we all need to be careful.

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I had a scam call today "hello, you thought about advertising on a charity calendar last year and..."
*hang up*

err... no thanks.

Let's all share our scam phone call stories here, see which is the most silly or outrageous

Annoying!

Tim

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People still fall for them... I've heard all sorts of weird scams.

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Had another one today... don't these people think I have anything better to do than get scammed? The most annoying thing is that a genuine client could be trying to get through whilst your busy trying to fob off these scam artists.

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What's so frustrating about these sort of outfits is they can seem to operate completely against fair play and effectively scam people consistently, yet precious little is done about them.

Compare this to 99% of legally operating businesses playing by the rules that are always under extreme pressure to get the right things submitted by the right dates, and any innocent mistake can get clobbered with swingeing penalties - it hardly seems fair does it!

Chris

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Grr... I've had that blo*dy charity calendar rubbish one three times in three weeks - must be because it's towards the end of the year... don't the scammers know these things get produced months in advance though!

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Sounds like your number has been well circulated Tim.

One of the unfortunate side effects of listing for free on popular directories like the yellow pages one (yell) is that your number gets used by all the scammers.

I know quite a few small businesses who simply won't list with yell and similar directories these days because basically all they get is time wasting scammy type calls rather than any customers.

Chris

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How many business websites abuse the word charity, no matter how hard you look in the dictionary you will see no reference to online marketing.
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Pete I don't understand your point?

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READ THIS...
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2008/07/charity-conman-peter-lyon-gets.html#comments

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As printed in the Mirror Newspaper:

'CONMAN LYON BACK ON PROWL'

SORTED

Penman & Sommerlad 05/04/2007

"HERE'S an alarming sight: habitual charity conman Peter Lyon arriving at the offices of a charity fundraising operation.
Lyon's made a pile by raking in funds that kind donors think will help worthy causes.
He lives in a big detached house and drives a top-of-the-range Merc with personalised plates.
And it's no wonder he's loaded when you look at his string of charity scams.

First there was Barrington House Publishing Company, run by Lyon until it was put into compulsory liquidation with debts of more than £2million - and the shyster was made bankrupt.
Out of its ashes rose Barrington House Publishing Corporation.
As a bankrupt, 44-year-old Lyon could not be a director but he managed to be the highest paid person in the building, netting £176,400 a year plus a £103,000 company Merc.
The money came from the £3.5m the company raked in by conning firms into paying for adverts in wall-planners, saying the cash would help sick children.
Mainly it helped sick conmen like lying Lyon, of Halsall, Lancs.
Barrington House Publishing Corporation, aka McKenzie Campbell Publishing, was also shut down by the High Court.
But that sort of thing doesn't stop someone as greedy as this slug. His next charity fund-raising scam was called Hamilton Forbes Ltd.
Again, you wouldn't have found Lyon's name on the company books.
But he got the lion's share of the proceeds - or, as the Insolvency Service put it, he was one of the "main benefactors" from the money they got from wellintentioned advertisers.
The watchdog added that the company accounts were "at best inaccurate, at worst misleading".
Only around 5p from every £1 raised went to help sick children, not that donors were told that.
And the advertisers didn't even get any decent publicity from their plugs on the wallplanners - because only a pitiful handful were ever printed and distributed.
Which brings us to the Honeyrose Foundation, a small charity helping terminally ill adults, that Lyon's was visiting.
A noble cause, but possibly run by somewhat naive individuals.
After getting a call out of the blue from someone they'd never heard of, they struck a deal to allow this stranger to raise money on their behalf.
The charity gets £2,500 a month. Which is nice.
But when we asked them what proportion of the total amount of money raised in their name this represented, Honeyrose admitted they didn't know.
According to the charity, the fundraiser who approached them was an Andrew Garside, a sole trader who ran something called Chestnut House.
The charity didn't have a landline for Garside but gave us his mobile. We've called it repeatedly and it's never been answered.
Garside may be a sole trader of Chestnut House but he is also the secretary of a company named Armstrong Faith Ltd.
Its director is a Lisa Colford - who just happens to be a Peter Lyon crony who worked at his Barrington House, McKenzie Campbell and Hamilton Forbes scams.
We've no idea how much Chestnut House or Armstrong Faith are getting from the deal because it's only just been set up.
But the involvement of Colford is not a good sign.
And the fact we spotted Lyon arriving at its offices is nothing short of horrifying".

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More bad press about Chestnut House -


http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2008/10/these-two-give-just-5-of-total.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P9rvVM_Lw4