London Emergency Plumbers owner Muhammed Shamrez given suspended jail sentence for contempt of court

Be careful who you call out, writes Paul Gosling. Complaints about the charges levied by a rogue tradesman began as a stream and became a torrent

Child’s play: some readers said that the work carried out by the plumber was straightforward but the costs were through the roof (Getty Images)

A rogue plumber has been plaguing Independent readers over the past three years. We have reported the stories in our weekly Questions of Cash column (see links below), but it is time to warn everyone about the dangers of dealing with tradespeople who just don't care.

Our three-year struggle with the rogue plumber in Bedford began when reader AS, of London, called London Emergency Plumbers because water was rushing through a ceiling; for a half-hour visit to turn off a stopcock – by this point the water flow from the tank had almost stopped – the charge was £1,058.40. AS queried this with the company, which claimed the charge was correct and that a plumber had spent 90 minutes at the premises.

London Emergency Plumbers had insisted that the reader pass on their card details before it would visit, and so the money was deducted from AS's NatWest Visa debit account. At first, the bank refused to help AS, but after we intervened, it agreed to refund £662 through a chargeback to the trader's account.

Our coverage of that incident led to a series of similar complaints about the firm, which also traded as Express Plumbers of Bedford. In November 2013, Bedford council's trading standards office took legal action against the owner of the business, Muhammed Shamrez (or Shamrel, on the company registration documents). It obtained a court judgment in which Shamrez and his businesses were prevented from conducting unfair trading practices, including misleading customers about charges.

For some time, it seemed that Shamrez had obeyed the order. But in July 2014, reader TB of London was charged £132 by London Emergency Plumbers for requesting a callout, which she cancelled 10 minutes later.

In March last year, we again heard about London Emergency Plumbers, after reader CT of London was charged £1,139 for a 70-minute visit to fix a leak. His wife's credit card company, Halifax, agreed to make a chargeback of £489.19 through Visa. Then, in September, MS of St Albans had the double misfortune of a bad leak and of calling London Emergency Plumbing, another trading name for the same business. MS was charged £678, but Barclaycard, the reader's card company, agreed to levy a chargeback of £468.

This gradual flow of complaints turned into a torrent this year. LH of London paid £860.40 to London Emergency Plumbing and complained that no work had been done. Payment had been made by American Express, which refused to levy a chargeback. As LH declined to authorise American Express to share relevant information with us, we were unable to press the case.

A different LH of London was also stung by Shamrez after a radiator tap broke. "When he brought the bill up on his iPad, it was the shocking total of £977," she said. "The labour cost was more than £600 and he charged for being there for two hours, despite only being there for one hour and 33 minutes. I estimate that he could have carried out the job in 30 minutes."

Next came JH of London, who was angry at a £1,017.90 charge from London Emergency Plumbing for fitting a tap on his bath. A few days later, we heard from GG of Luton, who was billed £863 by Nationwide Plumbing and Heating of Bedford "for the simple task of putting a valve in a bathroom sink pipe and installing a new flexi pipe". We contacted First Direct, which is seeking a chargeback.

Bedford trading standards officers also received a rush of complaints and last month took Shamrez back to court, where he admitted breaching the order previously imposed and was therefore found in contempt of court. He was given a suspended jail sentence of six months, which remains in place for an indefinite period. Shamrez was ordered to pay trading standards costs of £40,643.

Trading standards officers told the court they had received dozens of complaints, including those of our readers, which we had forwarded with their permission. "Mr Shamrez continually breached consumer protection legislation, including deliberately misleading consumers about the price of his services and how he would be paid, deliberately overcharging for his services, deliberately overstating the time taken to do jobs, deliberately taking payments from consumers without authorisation, and lying about his position in the company in order to avoid complaints."

The court was told that the Express Plumbing and London businesses ceased trading last month and the websites have closed. We could find no trace of them still trading under those names.

The court order does not apply to Nationwide Plumbing and Heating, which has different directors. There is no clear link between Nationwide and Express, although the two firms use the same registered company address in Bedford and the same phone number for company registrations. The address appears to be shared by several dozen companies.

We phoned Nationwide Plumbing and Heating repeatedly but the calls were not answered.