Many a children's tale ends thrillingly when the Knight in Shining Armour comes to rescue the Damsel in Distress -- but it doesn't often happen that the Knight who is riding to the rescue is the Damsel herself. This is however the case here, where the Knight is one Kirsteen Knight -- and she is in urgent need of our help and support. Kirsteen is putting together a feature on scammers who send out misleading and official-looking missives to trade mark and patent owners, luring them into paying handsome sums of money for the privilege of renewing their rights or for listings in commercially valueless registers and directories. This programme will be going out on this Kat's beloved BBC Radio 5 this coming Sunday.
Kirsteen, who has done a lot of work on this subject, has no clear notion of how many victims have fallen for these scams. Nor indeed has this Kat -- but he believes that many people, and indeed some substantial businesses, have done so.
If you have any clue about the scale of these operations, can you please email Kirsteen at
kirsteen.knight@bbc.co.uk or phone her at
5 Live Investigates on +44 20 8752 7774 as soon as possible and let her know. Time really is of the essence. Please forward this post to anyone you think may be able to help.
