Cold calling salespeople who bullied a farming couple with one home printer into buying enough ink to last them nearly 1700 years acted illegally, a tribunal has found.
The Melbourne-based office supplies company has been ordered by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal this week to pay more than $90,000 to the Queensland cattle farmers after it sold them more than 2000 printer ink cartridges.
![James Murray, CEO of Corporate Office Supplies](/web/20170310084058im_/http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/u/d/x/y/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guuhpl.png/1489048669135.jpg)
The company's jet-setting CEO and owner regularly posts on social media showing how the business has helped fund his glamorous lifestyle, which includes BMW cars and nights out in Las Vegas.
Salespeople from Corporate Office Supplies began making multiple cold calls to the home of husband and wife Rod and Charmaine Sharp in mid 2015.
![James Murray, CEO of Corporate Office Supplies (left) and company accountant Kodi Ashford.](/web/20170310084058im_/http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/u/e/1/2/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.guuhpl.png/1489048669135.jpg)
Mrs Sharp told the tribunal the company would not take no for an answer so she eventually bought 56 cartridges, far more than she would ever need. The couple went through one cartridge every 10 months.
But the company continued to call, going on to sell her vouchers for another 1984 cartridges.
She did not tell her husband about the payments, which totalled nearly $80,000.
After the purchases were made, the company began making aggressive demands for debt collection. Some phone calls were taken by the couple's young son.
VCAT deputy president Ian Lulham ruled the company had acted unconscionably in selling the "frankly ridiculous quantity" of cartridges to a family that owned a single printer and that it should have known the Sharps didn't need that much ink.
"[They] may as well assert that Mrs Sharp agreed to buy the Sydney Harbour Bridge," Mr Lulham noted.
The company did not file a defence. Its accountant Kodi John Ashford told the hearing Mrs Sharp was never bullied or harassed and had the right to decline the purchase.
Mr Lulham called for the company to be investigated by Consumer Affairs Victoria.
"It is not overstating the position to say that any business which sold over 2000 cartridges to a business that owned one printer acted unlawfully," he said.
The CEO and owner of Corporate Office Supplies is 28-year-old James Murray, who claims on his social media profiles to be based between Los Angeles and Melbourne.
Corporate records show Mr Murray first registered the company in 2010, with its offices listed at various locations in Melbourne's eastern suburbs since then.
Mr Murray lists on his LinkedIn page that he is a believer in "direct marketing", which typically includes cold calling, because of the growth it has delivered his business.
He also boasted online about the performance of his business. In one post, Mr Murray congratulates his team on "hitting 250k in one morning". In another update, he praises an account manager for closing a sale of $US43,200.
In a recent news report, Mr Murray also flagged that Corporate Office Supplies was planning to set up a call centre in Townsville with the help of a Queensland state government grant.
A company spokesman declined to comment.