Seven recruitment advertising firms have been wound up after an investigation found they were deceiving health trusts into paying for job adverts that had been already placed.

Representatives of the companies, which has similar names to long-established publications,  were cold calling the trusts pretending to be verifying details of the job adverts.

Six of the firms obtained more than £600,000 between August 2006 and March 2009, according to the Insolvency Service.

The firms, all based in Leamington Spa, were called: First Call Publications, Mode Enterprises, Community Care Jobs Online, BMJ UK, Nursing Today, Nursing Tomorrow and Reload Recruitment.

The investigation by the government’s Companies Investigation Branch (CIB) found that organisations, including health trusts, were unknowingly agreeing to pay for a new advertisement.