A raft of the country's leading magazine printers are owed money after printing Wavelength magazine for its publisher John Conway.


Others have had to revert to long drawn out legal action to recover money.


Conway appears to use the same modus operandi with each printer. Payment is based on the number of copies sold by distribution firm MMC, with the understanding that Wavelength would pay any outstanding balances. In most cases there is a drastic shortfall.


Buxton Press is owed 35,000 for issues 81 to 86 of Wavelength, printed between November 1998 and October 1999. Chairman Bernard Galloway said: "For some companies it's like being raped, to talk about it is painful. I'm not ashamed we were taken in, but we've paid a very high price."


"But Conway has a number of caveats written into the agreement. MMC is an innocent distributor that has to pay whoever he says."


Buxton Press dealt with John Conway and Wavelength in a number of guises: Wavelength, Wavelength Magazine Ltd, Wavelength Magazine (Europe) Ltd and John Conway trading as Wavelength Magazine. Galloway said that it was difficult to know which one he was dealing with at any one time.


"Winding up the company simply wasn't worth it because there's no asset value - it's a shell company. He lives in a large house in Newquay, but it's in his wife's name and he told us we couldn't touch it," said Galloway.


"In my opinion it demonstrates the inadequacies of the insolvency laws."


A leading Southern sheetfed magazine printer is owed 38,687 for work carried out for Conway, trading as Wavelength, from February to September 1998.


Its managing director said: "It all starts out so credibly with this system of being paid by the distributor. At first we thought he was a little unfortunate."


The company secured a charge against a 78,000 property in Newquay not lived in by Conway but in his name. However, it became apparent that this action was worthless as two banks also had charges against the same house for a total of 245,197.


Steve Mepham of ICSM, who assisted PrintWeek's investigation, said: "Unfortunately the law does not protect companies from this kind of thing happening."


Prior to Christmas Conway said via fax that he would be unavailable for interview until late January as he was recovering from an operation. He is still unavailable.


Wavelength general manager Barry Kalshoven refused to say where the magazine was currently being produced, and would not confirm that it is now printed on the continent.


PrintWeek would like to hear from other firms who have dealt with Wavelength or John Conway.


Story by John Davies