‘We’re confused’, say residents of Britain’s scam street where mysterious Chinese firms are registered at their homes
RESIDENTS of an ordinary neighbourhood street have become the target of mysterious Chinese scams.
Rhos Road in Swansea is now apparently home to Chinese cattle and buffalo farms despite being in the middle of a suburb.
Companies named Zhuangzhixiang Ltd and Zefanniubi Ltd are now ‘headquartered’ on the sleepy Welsh road – but locals say they are nowhere to be seen.
Residents became aware they were caught in a mysterious scam when they began receiving mail from Companies House addressed to their home, but not to them.
Instead, the letters are addressed to company directors with names like Zehong Zeng.
A whopping 48 companies have been listed since November 23 as operating on Rhos Road, affecting 18 households.
Rita and Brian Davies opened the mail sent to their home, despite it not being addressed to them.
At first they thought it must have been a mistake, but the letters continued arriving.
Rita, 75, told WalesOnline: “We went down to our bank and the girl there had a look on the Companies House website. She said, ‘Oh, this is happening at other addresses on your street.’
“We haven’t any buffaloes round the back, you can look if you like.”
The businesses include farming cattle, pigs, and buffaloes, viticulture, and the manufacture of “inorganic basic chemicals”.
Two archbishops, two archivists and a disc-jockey have registered as company directors to run businesses on the street.
The mail flooding the street is from the Companies House, tax codes from HMRC, and challenger banks advertising business accounts.
Michelle Goosey told the Daily Mail that she and her father received 20 letters in a few weeks.
Her home has been registered as being used to rear cattle and buffalo.
She said: “I’ve got anxiety and depression, and I suffer with stress. I’ve been trying to get back to my normal self and then all of this happened.
“Shouldn’t Companies House have noticed we don’t live on a farm? Rearing buffalo in the back garden? We wouldn’t fit one out there, let alone a whole farm!”
She is now terrified of what the scams could do to her finances and fears bailiffs could leave her out on the street.
Resident Mark Williams questioned why it was easier to register a business on Companies House than to remove on.
He said the local residents should be able to just email Companies House and easily get the scam businesses removed and the letters stopped.
Another neighbour, Laila Spurgeon, 39, said she had been hit with 50 letters in three weeks.
Graham Barrow, who runs the Dark Money Files podcast, said the companies were known as “burner companies” and were a tool used by criminal gangs to open bank accounts.
He said more than 100 people across the UK are a target of the scams each day and 20 per cent, or 155,000, companies on the register were fake.
He said: “It doesn’t mean the money ever enters the UK — that UK company could bank in Singapore… UK companies over much of the world are regarded as low risk, so it’s quite easy to use them to open business bank accounts.”
A Companies House spokesman said: “We are sorry to hear of the difficulties these individuals are experiencing and we are taking action where the law allows to assist those affected.
“Companies House carries out checks to ensure filings are complete, but at present, the registrar of companies has limited powers to verify or validate the information which is delivered to her.
“The registrar has administrative powers to move a company’s registered office address when satisfied the address is being used without authority.
“This process to move the company’s address can be engaged upon receipt of an application to Companies House.
“When the relevant measures in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act come into force, the registrar’s powers will be enhanced so that she can take proactive steps to remove fraudulent information from the register.”
Registering a company with Companies House
It only costs £12 to register a business with Companies House and almost anyone can do it.
All a person needs is three pieces of personal information. They can be: the town of your birth, your mother’s maiden name, father’s first name, and telephone number or national insurance number.
But scammers have been able to outsmart the system’s limited verification checks.