Subby

Ashley Rhodes [white shirt] with his barrister Simon Judd

For more than 20 years Aucklander Ashley Guy Rhodes made money from New Zealand businesses by copying their ads from other magazines and faxing them over with a request for approval.
Those who signed and faxed back would be billed by him, and sometimes abused and threatened with court action if they did not pay.
The courts couldn’t stop him even though in 1988 his company was fined $25,000 and in 1998 he and his wife were convicted and fined $130,000. These were “business expenses”, said Ashley in 1998, and a small price for making millions of dollars a year.
Last year he was back in court for weeks of hearings as the Commerce Commission produced witness upon witness to show the extent of his activities. In March 2007, nearly two years after the court case began, he was up for sentencing for 31 convictions on more than 300 charges [case reported in subby 1:03 page 27].
Down on his luck
Ashley suggested he was down on his luck. He had only $500 in the bank, his 2005 BMW was sold, his Nissan Skyline had blown up and he had been turned down for a benefit.
However, lawyer Brian Dickey for the Commerce Commission doubted Ashley’s apparent destitution, and Judge Barbara Morris was sceptical of his trustworthiness.
Ashley’s vehicles were owned by family trusts in the name of his daughter, although he had “beneficial use” of them. Takapuna solicitor Alex Witten-Hannah had not wanted the trust to be at risk for Ashley’s speeding fines or parking tickets, Ashley said. His longterm financial advisor John G Russell of Howick, had provided him with accounting services and written to WINZ on Ashley’s behalf but a doctor wouldn’t sign to say Ashley was unfit for work.
A company account Ashley had used for personal expenses was run down from $56,000 to $500 in the year to February, and regular deposits of $1068.75 came from an unknown source.
Ashley claimed deposits were from people paying his debt collection company for ads placed in his publications, which are defunct and which, according to evidence, were never produced in runs of more than 150, if at all.
One deposit to The Fun Club Wellington account that Ashley used, was from Ironmonger Plumbing in Cambridge for an advertisement. Trevor Iremonger says a person, whom he’s pretty sure did not identify himself as Ashley, threatened him with court action over advertising in a wall planner and promised to send a copy of it.
“That never arrived ... but who needs court action,” Trevor says.
Another tradesman, caught in a construction sector failure, says Ashley was chasing payment for one of his dubious invoices as a creditor at the tradesman’s 2007 liquidation hearing.
$300,000 unpaid tax
Ashley owes the IRD about $300,000, and prior to sentencing gave an undertaking that he would not set up the scam again.
In Australia he could have been jailed. Here the penalty is a fine of up to $60,000 for the trader and $200,000 for a company but a judge is unable to order more than a person can reasonably be expected to pay. Ashley this time was asked to pay $20,000 and to refund about $900. None of the companies of which he was a director had funds.
Under the Fair Trading Act, you need not pay without confirmation [see subby 1:02:06]. If the ad is published and you are suspicious, request confirmation. You can walk the brink and seek legal advice if threatened. Turn the tables and ask the collector for the names of three other advertisers. That’ll give you a bigger picture. ■
For more info on Ashley Guy Rhodes, his billing scams and others like them, check http: // www.consumer.org.nz