Manchester publishing company Costello Limited is closed down

Costello Limited, based in Trafford Park, Manchester carried on business nationally selling advertising space in publications and on websites purporting to promote awareness in child safety, road safety and crime prevention.

The enquiry, by the Insolvency Service’s Companies Investigation Branch (CIB) found that, between February 2008 and July 2009 the company achieved income in excess of £600,000, from cold-calling potential advertisers, usually small businesses, and offering them advertising space based on misleading representations.

The enquiry also found that there was little or no of commercial benefit to customers from placing adverts in the publications and that there was no evidence to support claimed distribution figures. Additionally, the company pursued its customers for payment in an aggressive, threatening and intimidating manner in circumstances when it knew or ought to have known that the a significant number of advertisers either did not want the advert or had not requested it.

 CIB Investigations Supervisor Alex Deane said;

“This case serves as another reminder to businesses to be wary of anyone who cold-calls asking potential customers to place advertisements in wall-planners, diaries, children’s fun books and similar publications. Anyone who has any doubts or feels that they are being intimidated into paying for such unsolicited or unwanted advertising should consult the Insolvency Service website http://www.insolvency.gov.uk and follow the link to Companies Investigation Branch where there are more details concerning this type of publishing scam” .

Posted at 07:51PM Feb 15, 2010 by Kelly Board in Insolvency  |  Comments[0]

Unemployment Expected to Rise Once More

Yet more redundancies are planned throughout the UK, especially in the public sector despite leaving recession.  This has come according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) who report that nearly one a third of all public sector employers are planning job cuts this quarter.

"The UK jobs market is still on the ropes," the CIPD said.

CIPD’s latest survey is showing that the job outlook has actually worsened after a surprise fall in the unemployment figures in the quarter ending November 2009.  There are currently 2.46 million unemployed in the UK, the latest figures are to be announced in the coming week.

The Chief Economic Advisor at CIPD, John Philpott has released a statement regarding the latest quarterly survey.

"Despite the jobs market proving resilient in recent months, this represents a mere pause for breath with the number of redundancies easing in the private sector and spending cuts yet to be felt by large swathes of the public sector," he said.

"Unfortunately, there are more testing rounds ahead. Alongside the spectre of deep public spending cuts, the private sector will be dealing with ongoing concerns about productivity, wage costs and inflation.

"The CIPD's survey of more than 700 employers found that firms in all sectors plan to cut 6.2% of their workforce in the first three months of 2010, compared with 3.8% in the previous quarter.”

Defence and Public Administration in the Public Sector look set to be hit hardest by the forthcoming cuts.

Outsourcing Worries

On a slightly more positive note, the private sector is expecting to see job levels rise for the first time since the start of the recession in 2008.  However more and more companies are planning to outsource aspects of their work abroad which is becoming a growing concern for the UK job market.

One in 10 companies is looking to outsource, whilst in the IT industry, the figure is even more worrying with almost half planning to move jobs overseas.

India continues to be the main country in which businesses are outsourcing to due to the relatively low cost to conduct business compared to the UK. Eastern European countries are the next ‘outsourcing hotspot.’

Posted at 10:51AM Feb 15, 2010 by Marc Stenton in The Economy  |  Comments[0]