'Cowboy' window firm used 'aggressive' tactics to get customers before leaving them almost £100k out of pocket

A 'cowboy' window company left trusting customers out of pocket by almost £100,000 - and often left their homes a 'mess' after poor-quality work.

A court heard how customers in the Beverley area in East Yorkshire were 'cold called' and tricked into thinking that they were eligible for government scrappage grants, HullLive reports. They were then put under pressure to pay large deposits that they never got back.

One woman was forced to pay thousands to the company when she was by her dying husband's bedside, the court was told. Another customer paid almost £20,000 but no windows or conservatory were ever fitted.

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Car dealer and restaurant owner Kamran Akram, 51, admitted 13 offences, involving the unauthorised use of a glass company's trade marks in advertising used in the Beverley area, unfair or aggressive practices towards customers and using misleading commercial practices. He originally denied the matters.

A judge said he was 'relentless in pursuing people for payment' as he handed him a suspended sentence. Stephen Grattage, prosecuting for East Riding of Yorkshire Council, said that Akram was the sole director of The Glass House (Yorkshire) Ltd, a company set up in November 2020 for the "manufacture of doors and windows of metal" and registered to Stanningley, Pudsey, West Yorkshire.

Complaints were received by the council's trading standards department about the company from December 2020 after customers in the Beverley area were cold called with aggressive, misleading and banned practices used.

There was pressure selling and misleading information about discounts, demanding large deposits, failing to cancel orders and return