How fraudster on a jet ski runs a network of cold calling sharks who ‘groom’ victims into taking out fake domestic appliance cover. So are YOU on their ‘suckers list’?

Hundreds of thousands of households are being fleeced by fraudsters who sell them fake insurance for appliances, electrical goods and domestic repairs, a Money Mail investigation has found.

Scammers bombard targets with around 40 million cold calls a year, with the true scale of the fraud unknown because most victims do not report it.

Some of these victims are then tricked into taking out insurance ‘cover plans’ – a form of insurance to protect white goods such as fridges, freezers, dishwashers and washing machines if they break down.

They charge from around £20 to £70 a month – often for appliances only costing a few hundred pounds at most – paid by direct debit.

Victims may only discover they have been scammed when the appliance on which they believe they have cover breaks down and the policy is not honoured.

Trading Standards believe hundreds, potentially thousands, of scammers are in operation, in most cases working through firms legally registered with Companies House to give them the veneer of legitimacy but repeatedly closing and re-starting firms in similar names to dodge detection.

Our investigation also found:

• The cold-calling sharks operate like ‘domestic abusers’ and use similar techniques to ‘grooming, coercive control and manipulation’ to lure victims into signing up for extortionate, unnecessary and usually non-existent cover.

• Fraudsters dupe victims by setting up ‘clone companies’ with almost identical names to authentic insurers or falsely claiming to be from reputable companies when they call.

• Once victims sign up to one scam, they are put on a ‘suckers list’ and repeatedly fleeced by the highly organised fraudsters.

How it works

Networks of cold callers phone potential victims and use specially written call scripts to claim falsely that they need to renew or reinstate the manufacturer’s warranty on their appliances.

Others are offered the chance to switch their current premium to get a discount – and end up paying for the genuine one and a new, fake policy.

Louise Baxter, from the National Trading Standards scams team, says that scammers use tricks to hook their victims that are very similar to those used by domestic abuse perpetrators. ‘When we talk about fraud and scams, there is often still a tendency to trivialise it, to treat it as if it’s all “Oh Del Boy” and tell victims “You fell for it, you’ve been tricked”,’ she says.

‘No, you haven’t been tricked. You’ve been groomed. You’ve been coerced. You’ve been controlled. You’ve been financially abused.’

Fraudsters are extremely cunning in how they lure victims in, often befriending them, she says. ‘It’s a slow-burn build-up of a relationship and apparent position of trust. Then they push them into what’s called a hot state, so they make decisions quickly.’

One technique is during the first couple of weeks the scammers only call at night and keep them on the phone for as long as possible ‘befriending them’. This means when they call during the day the victims are often sleep-deprived and extra-vulnerable.

‘That stress makes it easier to push them into the hot state where they make decisions they wouldn’t usually make. It’s insidious, it’s horrible, it’s brutal.’

The scammers also highlight how they are offering services to ‘protect’ their victims. ‘They say, this is going to stop you from having a massive financial outlay when you have to replace your white goods in your kitchen. I’m helping you.’

People want to assume that sort of thing couldn’t happen to them. Otherwise, they’d have to accept that they could become a victim too, she says. A failure to report the crimes means that the true scale of the fraud is unknown.

In part this is because, like rogue traders, consumers do not know where to report it to because they usually don’t believe it’s a police matter. Others don’t report it because they think there is no chance of getting their money back or fear losing their financial autonomy if they report it.

‘This is coercive control, grooming and manipulation at its worst,’ says Louise. Almost all the firms involved in fleecing victims Money Mail found were based on the south coast, mostly around Bournemouth and Brighton.

One investigator said those behind the scams were a ‘cross between a car salesman and an estate agent’. ‘They’re all very likely lads, Mr BMW, goes to Wetherspoons on a Friday night and then clubbing in Bournemouth.’

‘It’s all arranged down the pub, all mates’ rates. They think what they are doing is really cool.

‘It’s almost like a franchise. They go, “I’ve got this list of people, they’ve fallen for everything. Why don’t you go and ring them up too? Or get a call centre in India to do it for you.” ’

One fake insurance fraudster sanctioned by the High Court after pocketing millions by fleecing pensioners is living the high life abroad – as his operation continues to expand, Money Mail has found.

Abdelhak Akayour, 44, from Worthing, West Sussex, masterminded a gang of swindlers who used an international network of call centres to ‘bulldoze’ vulnerable targets into signing up for scam cover for household appliances and domestic repairs.

He directed an army of sales reps to impersonate reputable companies and bombard victims with hundreds of thousands of ‘aggressive and predatory’ calls a month. His targets, who were mostly elderly, living alone, weren’t tech savvy and sometimes had early-stage dementia, often ended up with multiple direct debits from multiple cover plans for the same appliance costing them thousands of pounds a year.

One victim described how the call came out of the blue when her husband was ill. ‘We were bulldozed’, she says. ‘They were such fast-talking, hard-hitting people that we were both totally and utterly worn out by the time they’d finished.’

Another tells how the sales reps could ‘very, very easily talk somebody into something they didn’t want to do’.

The scam appeared plausible because, in most cases, the cold callers somehow knew the customer’s name and address, details of their appliance, how much they already paid in monthly direct debit for cover and often at least part of their credit or debit card number – although it is unclear how they had obtained this information, the High Court was told.

The scheme meant many victims ended up paying for two plans for the same appliance – one real, one bogus – as they wrongly believed their genuine plan had expired or been cancelled.

For years Akayour waved two fingers at the authorities and refused to co-operate with multiple investigations into the rogue companies he oversaw.

It eventually reached the High Court where, in a damning recent ruling, a judge branded the actions of Akayour and his henchmen ‘fraudulent’ and found him to be in contempt of court.

But, despite this, a Money Mail investigation has discovered Akayour’s call centres continue to operate in Morocco – where they have advertised for a string of new ‘sales agents’ in recent months – while he appears to be revelling in his ill-gotten gains. Just a few weeks after failing to take part in the High Court hearing, Akayour was enquiring online about the details of a £1million villa in the tourist hotspot of Marrakesh.

The property boasts four en-suite bedrooms, vast reception area, a big and modern kitchen with all appliances, staff quarters, sunlit swimming pool, carport and gated security – and was described by the estate agent as ‘absolutely top-notch’.

Other social media pictures show a grinning Akayour apparently giving the V-sign as he jet skis and elsewhere relaxing on his luxury boat.

He leads one of several cells of ‘likely lad’ scammers, many still operating from the south coast of England, who sell on ‘suckers lists’ of victims in what one Trading Standards expert dubbed a ‘geezers’ fraud franchise’ that together fleece vulnerable pensioners out of tens of millions of pounds a year.

Since 2016, university graduate Akayour has run numerous companies which targeted the elderly and vulnerable to convince them to pay for fake insurance policies.

The scam was based in Brighton but he was also the director of a call centre in Morocco and hired other call centres in India to generate leads. Akayour and his henchmen repeatedly refused to co-operate with the authorities when they started to investigate and instead simply set up a new company usually operating on the same location with the same managers and staff.

Two of his previous companies were compulsorily struck off by Companies House and a third, Total Motor Aid Limited, was shut down by the High Court for non-payment of taxes.

Another, Premier Protect Holdings Limited, was branded ‘appalling’ by Insolvency Service investigators after it was shut down and ordered into liquidation in a previous High Court ruling.

Akayour also oversaw Apex Assure which was ordered – but failed – to pay a £230,000 fine to the Information Commissioner’s Office after making more than a million ‘predatory’ cold calls which victims said were ‘misleading and aggressive’. Targets continued to get sales calls even after signing up with the Telephone Preference Service, an official register set up to stop nuisance calls.

Fleecing the elderly and vulnerable proved a lucrative business, with the latest incarnation of his scam, UK Service Plan Limited (UKSP), enjoying a turnover of £2.1 million for the year ending February 2023.

Some of his staff also appear to run side hustles doing exactly the same scams through their own companies, Money Mail found.

Akayour’s sales agents frequently claimed to be from Domestic & General (D&G) – a legitimate company offering insurance – to dupe their targets.

In the latest October 2024 High Court judgment against Akayour, which followed legal action by D&G, Mr Justice Lavender ruled he had used ‘unlawful means’ ‘intended to cause harm’ to D&G as a ‘means of winning business for their companies’ and cost D&G a ‘substantial amount of business’.

The judge said Akayour and one of his proteges encouraged and coached agents to make ‘fraudulent misrepresentations’ of other businesses when calling targets.

Akayour declined to take part in proceedings, telling the court he was out of jurisdiction, and faces arrest if he returns to the UK on bench warrant following insolvency proceedings against him.

But Money Mail found his chain of call centres continues to run in Morocco, under the name Hi5, which the court ruled was Akayour’s enterprise and had previously made ‘substantial payments’ to him. Hi5 Marketing Limited was a registered company in the UK whose listed director has also worked for two previous companies overseen by Akayour.

It is dissolved, but another company, called Hi5 Group, with the same director is now registered in the UK. Two other senior staff working for Hi5 have both been involved with Akayour’s companies since as early as 2016.

On its webpage, which has a contact phone number with a Brighton code, Hi5 advertises itself online as ‘a family-owned and operated business founded in 2016’ and claims to provide business outsourcing services.

It offers ‘lead generation and market research agents’ to help businesses boost sales by ‘identifying potential customers and providing them with relevant information to make a purchase decision’. Together, they have room for 370 staff – and as recently as June 2025 they have been advertising for new recruits to the sales team. Hi5 did not respond to requests for comment.

William Sutherland, 88, was tricked by telesales scammers into paying more than 30 direct debits for unneeded insurances and services. The fraud finally came to light after he contacted his brother Ian – who lives abroad – to say he couldn’t understand why he was short of money.

Ian, 75, was ‘astonished and horrified’ when he discovered the scale of the scamming. He said his brother lived a ‘modest but happy’ life in a village near Elgin in Scotland, after a career working on offshore oil fields and then as a mason.

‘A lifelong bachelor, he was always employed, never well paid, but careful with his income and happy in his own small little place with modest needs and modest interests,’ he adds. ‘He was totally un-tech-savvy. He knew nothing of computers or the internet and his needs were always met by a simple landline phone.

‘In recent years, he suffered cognitive decline which increased his vulnerability. He was also very trusting, which made him particularly susceptible to tele-scammers.’

Ian discovered 34 direct debits set up on his TSB bank account that all came from a ‘big cell of fraudsters’ based in the South-East of England for unnecessary insurance he had never claimed.

He compiled a snapshot audit from January 2020 to October 2021 that showed his brother lost more than £4,000 during this period, but Ian believes the scammers were fleecing William for many years previously.

When he asked William why he had so many unnecessary direct debits, his brother told him: ‘They were just things people told me I needed.’ Ian said: ‘All these tele-scammers needed was an account number and a sort code to set up the direct debit, and bang, bang, bang they had his money again and again. When I looked at the companies behind them it was the same names and same people again and again. Sometimes they had scores of companies in the same name.

‘It seems as soon as they were close to being rumbled they just shut it down and moved on.’

Ian, who was granted power of attorney over William’s finances in November 2021, says: ‘The elderly or credulous customers are particularly susceptible to insurance sales activity for they are frequently overly fearful of so-called risks that may have little or no relevance to their circumstances.

‘There are probably many elderly people who have fallen into this trap and had their accounts drained. If my brother’s case was replicated, the loss to fraud would be millions going into billions. That’s something that should be prevented.’

A TSB spokesman said: ‘We are very sorry Mr Sutherland was targeted. TSB has a proven track record protecting all innocent victims of fraud and has paid out over £6,500 to fully refund him.’

The bank refunded more than 200 payments. After Money Mail contacted the bank, as a gesture of goodwill, a further £592 was refunded.

If you know Abdelhak Akayour or any of the fraudsters please contact Tom.kelly@dailymail.co.uk’ 

investigations@dailymail.co.uk

Additional reporting: Matt Brown