Concerns are being raised about Houseprint Ltd, trading as The Printing House, despite the fact that the company has now been placed in liquidation as it may have been reincarnated under a different name.

Darshan Sanghrajka, founder and chief executive of social change agency Super Being Labs, said he ordered a print run of 5,000 books from The Printing House earlier this year.

Sanghrajka paid a deposit of £3,500 to The Printing House and was due to take delivery of the books on 18 July 2016. In a number of letters seen by PrintWeek, Sanghrajka was initially told by The Printing House’s solicitors, Tonner Johns Ratti, that there had been delays and the books wouldn’t arrive until 4 August, citing previously unreported problems with the books' artwork.

After various exchanges with the company and its solicitors, Sanghrajka was promised a full refund, but on 19 August he received a further letter from Tonner Johns Ratti that stated that The Printing House had been placed in liquidation with insolvency practitioner Stones & Co.

The creditors meeting will take place on 1 September at the Swansea office of Stones & Co. 

According to documents at Companies House the sole director of The Printing House is listed as Clair Rosina Hunnisett. However, according to Sanghrajka and a number of other clients, their key contact at the business was Neill Stuart Malcolm John, although he is not listed as a director.

A spokesman for liquidator Stones & Co said: “We met for the first time with Miss Clair R Hunnisett and Mr Stuart John here on 18th August 2016.  At that meeting our firm was engaged by the director of Houseprint Limited formerly trading as The Printing House, Miss Clair Rosina Hunnisett, to assist her in placing that company into creditors’ voluntary liquidation.”

Houseprint Ltd, which was incorporated in 2012, was also previously registered as A Printing Company Ltd, Universal Printing Corporation Ltd, and TPH Printing Ltd.

Houseprint Ltd trading as The Printing House is entirely unconnected with Crewe-based The Printing House Ltd.

According to Sanghrajka, John is now representing UK Print Ltd, which was incorporated in November 2014 and shares the same registered office as The Printing House – 3rd Floor 14 Hanover Street, London W1S 1YH – and also lists Clair Hunnisett as sole director.

Neither Hunnisett or John were available for comment at the time of writing.

John’s previous directorships include Britannia Press Ltd, Swane Ltd, Ambeck Corporation Ltd, Masterclass Associates Ltd, and Dragon Press Ltd. Hunnisett was also a director of Ambeck Corporation. All five companies are either dissolved or in liquidation.

PrintWeek has spoken to a number of other printers and clients that have had similar experiences to Sanghrajka at the hands of The Printing House.

Sanghrajka said he believed that many more people had fallen victim to The Printing House and he wanted to issue a warning to others.

Ipswich-based Page Creative Print director Gill Robinson placed an order with The Printing House for a hardbacked and paperback books earlier this year. She asked that they be printed at the Gravesend factory described on The Printing House's website.

Robinson said: “John said he could get them printed in Europe because they were cheaper and I said ‘No’ because part of my remit is I use people within a two-hour radius and Gravesend fits in with that radius. It turned out the Gravesend factory is run by someone completely separate.”

The address of the Gravesend industrial estate given is home to two printing companies, DPS Print and Quantum Colour, neither of which has any formal association with The Printing House.

After missing a number of deadlines on the initial run of the hardback book, for which John offered a 10% discount, Robinson was issued a bill to pick up the books from East Midlands Airport. It transpired the books had been printed in Turkey and not to the specifications agreed.

After Robinson complained, she received a letter from Tonner Johns Ratti stating that The Printing House would not reprint the book and that until the issue was sorted, production would not go ahead with the paperback run.

“He’s got my money and I’ve now had to pay for these books twice. We are currently in the process of preparing court papers because it’s basically taken about £11,000 of my money to get the paperback one done,” said Robinson.

16-year old self publisher Adam Woodage chose The Printing House to produce his third book The Anatomy of a Goalkeeper. He agreed to pay £825 for 500 books to be delivered by 1 August, which he admitted “sounded too good to be true”. There were a series of delays before just five digitally printed books arrived. He has so far recovered £675.

Woodage said: “I got the sense that this was too good to be true but it kept being reinforced by John’s articulation. At first, he was picking up emails at all times of the day, he did so many things to make it seem legitimate so any worries you had you just sort of offset them against that."

Jeremy Priest, managing director of Gloucester-based Thinck Print, has similarly suffered at the hands of Houseprint Ltd/The Printing House.

Priest contacted John in September 2015 and commissioned him to produce a set of cookbooks for a cookery school. He paid a £2,500 deposit, but was immediately told by John that there were issues with the printing. In early December, Priest requested 50 advanced copies and was sent just 30, all of which had been damaged in transit.

When the cookery school pulled the plug on the order, Priest demanded his deposit back and The Printing House via its lawyers agreed to pay back £150 a week.

However, according to Priest the payments were only sporadic and, as a result, he posted a warning on The Printing House’s Facebook page about dealing with the company.

Priest said that this resulted in The Printing House threatening legal action for “missed earnings’ due to the impact of the post. The matter was settled out of court.

Priest said: “It nearly took me under as a business. I’d only been going for a couple of years when I dealt with him. I had to borrow money off my dad to keep me afloat.

“He is deliberately going with companies that are relatively new, that haven’t got the capital to pursue him through the courts.”