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Buyer Beware - Will Writing fraud30th August 2011
Will-writing fraudster jailed
Friday 26 August 2011 by Jonathan Rayner
An unregulated will-writer has been jailed for 14 months after fraudulently charging 130 clients between £30 and £60 to fix a non-existent problem with their wills.
Berkshire resident Walter Ventriglia, 47, was running a will-writing firm called Legacy & Law. He wrote to the clients, under the alias Tony Edwards, to advise them that their wills would become invalid by changes to the law unless they paid him to make the necessary modifications. There had been no changes to the law.
He also ran a will storage business, UK Will Register, that he claimed stored clients wills in a secure facility in London, whereas in truth they were kept in an airing cupboard at his home.
He was sentenced at Reading Crown Court on 19 August having pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading contrary to section 9 of the Fraud Act 2006.
This article originally appeared in the Law Society Gazette on Friday 26 August.