BOGUS ADVERTISING CONTRACTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 45, 23 February 1939, Page 8

BOGUS ADVERTISING CONTRACTS

GAOL FOR AGENT COMPANY GOES INTO LIQUIDATION [Per Press Association. I WELLINGTON, Feb. 22. Commission paid to him for bogus advertising contracts led to chai\T~ of false pretences against. John Hartland Pierson, aged 29, agents, before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M. There was also a charge of theft of six cases of whisky, of a value of £3B 8s 6d. It was stated that Pierson was employed as a salesman for Service Publications, Ltd., on September 4, 1937, on a wages and commission basis. By means of bogus advertisements, which he represented as genuine, he received from his employers £2O in commission on December 3, 1937. About November 9, 1937, he ordered in his employers’ name six cases of whisky from a Wellington firm, three being forwarded to the Auckland office and three to Wellington. Pierson, it is alleged, disposed of a quantity of whisky in Auckland and sold some to friends. His employers knew nothing of the transaction until the account was forwarded. It was found that the employers had several hundred pounds’ worth of bad debts resulting from these bogus contracts and they were forced to go into voluntary liquidation. Mr. Rollings, who pleaded guilty on behalf of Pierson, said- he hardly thought it correct on the parft of the company to blame Pierson for the disaster which overtook it. It was difficult to believe that a company with a branch in Auckland and a branch in Wellington could be brought to shipwreck by employing a single man for a period of three or four months. Counsel submitted that the company had reimbursed itself to some extent by witholding Pierson’s wages. In regard to the whisky counsel said it was a mistake to charge it to the firm. The staff had decided that they would order six cases from the dealers who had been placing advertisements with the firm and at one time Pierson had the price of about four and three-quarter cases collected. He asked the magistrate to take into consideration a letter he handed to the Bench. Pierson was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on each charge, the sentences be cumulative.