​Jail for council tax band con man

A man who tricked thousands of people into believing they could reduce their council tax banding has been sent to prison.

Irfan Zafar and his partners Rizwan Zafar and Nadeem Sharif tricked thousands of customers across the North West.

Operating from premises in Bury as Dalton and Dalton Tax Consultants Limited, they cold-called prospective customers, many of whom were older people, and claimed that their homes were in the wrong council tax bracket.

Customers were misled into believing they had been hand-picked by the company because they were highly likely to succeed in an application for their property to be rebanded. If successful, customers stood to receive a refund of backdated council tax overpayments (potentially thousands of pounds) and a reduction in their future council tax payments. In reality, the actual prospect of customers seeing any success was at best a little over 1%.

The company positioned its staff as experts in their field; a one-stop-shop offering the expertise and knowledge of solicitors and property surveyors.

Customers who responded to cold calls were visited by highly trained, commission-driven field sales agents who falsely claimed to have a proven success rate in council tax rebanding. Customers were charged an upfront one-off fee of £165 for the service. The company signed up more than 7,000 customers, generating upfront fee payments of more than £1 million.

Houses are placed into council tax bands by the Valuation Office Agency, not the council. Details of how to appeal your banding for free are on its website: https://www.gov.uk/topic/local-government/council-tax

Zafar pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud on 4 March 2020 and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court on 22 May.

Sharif was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years. He was ordered to carry out 250 hours of community punishment and pay £5,000 in prosecution costs.

Rizwan Zafar was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 250 hours community punishment.

Bury trading standards started receiving complaints in 2012, but the company would not comply with the authority’s advice. The National Trading Standards North West Regional Investigations team was then brought in following referrals from both Bury and Stockport councils.

Councillor Jane Black, Bury Council’s cabinet member for the cultural economy, said: “This business set out to deliberately defraud ordinary council tax paying members of the public all over the country. They ripped people off and did nothing for the money.”

Angela Lomax, head of trading standards in Bury, added: “The complexity and sheer numbers of victims couldn’t be tackled by Bury alone, which is where the national investigation team provided invaluable assistance. This result has been a long time coming and we cannot praise our regional colleagues highly enough for this excellent result.”

Lord Harris, chair of National Trading Standards, said: “These individuals deliberately misled and exploited innocent victims by targeting them on their own doorsteps, applying high pressure sales tactics and making false claims to deceive them into parting with their money. These sentences should serve as a warning to anyone engaging in similar schemes – your actions will not be tolerated and you could end up behind bars.

“I would like to congratulate all involved in bringing these criminals to justice. If you suspect any similar cases of criminal trading, we urge you to report it to Trading Standards via the Citizens Advice Consumer Service on 0808 223 1133.”

ENDS

Press release issued: 11 June 2020.