Scam company offered fake hospitality packages to British Grand Prix

A company that scammed customers out of hundreds of thousands of pounds by offering fake hospitality packages to the British Grand Prix has been shut down.

Manchester-based Informa Expo Ltd claimed the packages for this year’s race at Silverstone, which were advertised at a heavily discounted price, had become available after a cancellation.

But after customers paid, they failed to receive their tickets and were unable to contact the firm due to its phone and email contacts being taken down. In total, customers were scammed out of about £230,000, according to the Insolvency Service.

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Informa Expo, which traded as Informa Hospitality Group, was wound-up at the High Court in Manchester today (Wednesday).

David Usher, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: "Informa Expo never had the rights to hospitality packages for this year’s British Grand Prix. This did not stop it, however, from scamming businesses out of significant sums of money.

"This is the third company claiming to sell hospitality packages for high-profile sporting events we have successfully applied to have wound-up in the last year.

"We will not tolerate companies acting in such an objectionable manner which is clearly not in the public interest and we will continue to take robust action if we uncover evidence of similar wrongdoing from other businesses."

The Insolvency Service launched an investigation into Informa Expo in May of this year and said it had "found no evidence of any legitimate trading by the company".

Investigators spoke to the sole hospitality provider for the British Grand Prix, which confirmed it had served a cease-and-desist letter on Informa Expo for its "unauthorised advertising and sale of hospitality".

Warnings about the company were also published by the FIA, the motorsport governing body. The Insolvency Service said Informa Expo "had been operating in a similar fashion to Darcella Ltd and Prive Global Sports Ltd", two companies that were shut down earlier this year.

Analysis of Informa Expo’s bank records revealed three payments totalling more than £42,000 combined to Prive Global Sports back in January. Informa Expo also charged 20pc VAT on each sale, collecting around £46,000 in tax, despite not being registered to do so.

No evidence was found that any of the VAT collected by Informa Expo was paid to HM Revenue and Customs.

When investigators visited Informa Expo’s alleged City Tower office address on New York Street in Manchester city centre, they found no trace of the company.

Attempts to contact current and previous directors of Informa Expo also proved unsuccessful and the company failed to provide its books and records to the Insolvency Service as required. The Official Receiver has been appointed as liquidator of the company.