Advertising scam shuts two firms

THE Insolvency Service has helped shut down two Oldham-based companies after investigating an advertising scam.

Magnify Media Ltd and Sabretooth Media Ltd, which both operated from the Meridian Business Centre, King Street, have gone into compulsory liquidation.

Investigators say they solicited funds from small businesses for advertisements in publications, implying that the monies paid by advertisers would go to good causes.

They received payments from advertisers totalling £300,000, but the investigation found no evidence to suggest that any publications had been produced, or to show that any money had been donated to good causes. The accounting records recovered were deemed wholly inadequate for the purpose of explaining the income and expenditure of the companies — but did show that they formed part of a wider network engaged in similar disreputable activity.

They have now been wound up in the High Court following the investigation by the Companies Investigation Branch of the Insolvency Service.

Magnify Media was registered at Folkestone in Kent and Sabretooth Media in Middleton.

Guidance on what action businesses can take to protect against such scams is available on www.insolvency.gov.uk/cib/scams