FURIOUS business owners have hit out after being allegedly duped of tens of thousands of pounds in a debt collection scam by a company linked to a Scots Outlander star.

The Scottish Sun on Sunday reported how Paul Donnelly’s former company Vanguard Partners, a subsidiary company of Caledonian Group Services Limited, had allegedly conned firms out of tens of thousands of pounds in a scam.

The actor, 46, quit as director of the under-fire firm, based in Edinburgh, after it allegedly recovered clients’ cash and then kept it.

Devastated business owners have told how they have been “put through hell” personally and financially after dealings with Vanguard.

Paul Webb, 39, from Milton Keynes, said it was the “worst experience of my life” after allegedly being scammed out of more than £30,000 in December 2020.

The single dad, who owns his own painting company, claimed they received fake documents from Vanguard that showed them “chasing the debt”.

However, the debtors later sent him bank statements, which were seen by the Scottish Sun, showing that the full debt was paid in numerous instalments to Vanguard by December 2020, which he was not aware of until April 2021.

Paul told the Scottish Sun: “It’s been nothing but three years of stress. I went into shock because I just didn’t believe that people were that sick.”

Paul, who has epilepsy, explained that the stress over the last few years has increased his chances of having a seizure.

He has been seizure free for eight years but has had some close calls recently and started showing symptoms, including “phasing out”.

He added: “And I was so worried about having a seizure, I was like on the brink. I’ve been to a couple of restaurants and my Mrs has had to take me home.

“It’s horrible. This has all started from Vanguard. Getting to sleep has been also been a problem for two years now.”

Paul told how his anxiety levels skyrocketed and he became depressed and developed mental health issues after his ordeal caused him to be signed off work.

A letter from the NHS, seen by the Scottish Sun, explains that Paul’s depression “impacted sleep and appetite and resulted in stress and thoughts of ‘I don’t want to be here anymore'”.

He then received support and treatment from an Urgent Care Team for “low mood and anxiety to a stress reaction from financial fraud” which “significantly impacted his mental health”.

Paul explained that the situation and money loss held him back from getting married and buying a house and also impacted his relationship with his 17-year-old son.

Juliette Thomas, 58, was furious after being allegedly scammed by Vanguard when she signed an agreement to allow them to collect a debt of £49,747.50 before charging her an additional £3,780 in alleged court fees in January 2021.

No documents were sent to her or her solicitors to say that court proceedings had begun and no one explained what the additional money was used for, and it is not known whether the original debt was ever recovered.

The mum-of-four, based in London, built her company from the ground up when she had just £1,200 in the bank before starring on Dragons’ Den and Millionaires’ Mansions.

Juliette said: “It brings me down, as a person, in my business – I mean I’ve got potentially £54,000 missing. And you feel like an absolute idiot for falling for it in the first place.

“It’s not the easiest time at the minute – we’ve had one crisis after another. It’s a lot of money unaccounted for, it’s life-changing for me and it’s a lot of cash flow to lose.”

Juliette slammed the current system that makes it “almost impossible” to report cases like this to the police.

She explained that after reporting it to an English police force she was told it was out of their jurisdiction because it was a Scottish company and therefore would need to be dealt with by Police Scotland.

But Police Scotland informed her that she had to report it to a force in her local area first before they could pick it up.

Juliette added: “I think for me the most distressing and upsetting and time-consuming part of all of this is that it’s unreportable. It’s proving impossible to report it to the police.

“The worst bit is knowing that there’s nothing you can do. It’s extremely frustrating.

“I am absolutely dumbfounded and speechless as to how somebody could blatantly do this and you cannot report it to the police to get them stopped.”

After her experience, Juliette has been left afraid to trust other debt collectors who could help her get money back in other situations, which is a big blow to her business.

She explained: “I have to recover money through the courts now and again, and I get debt collectors calling me up and I won’t trust any of them.

“Anybody that calls me to collect a debt I just tell them to get lost because there’s no way I’m going to ever fall for this again.”

Another businessman, who wished to remain anonymous, revealed that the time spent trying to contact Vanguard has been the biggest issue for him.

He claimed that Vanguard was entrusted to collect a debt of £1,322 for their company in April 2021 and charged them an additional £450.17 in fees.

But he then claims he discovered that their debtors paid Vanguard after they sent over bank statements to show that it had been paid in three instalments.

The businessman said: “This is ruining people’s lives.

“For me, it’s the time wasted. I spent a lot of hours on the laptop, on the phone, trying to get answers, trying to get… well, anything to be honest.

“So from a business point of view, that time spent between us could have been spent elsewhere being a lot more productive and things like that.

“It’s the time and the frustration. It’s just pathetic what they’ve been like. And how they’ve been able to do it for so long.”

Last week, Donnelly said he was no longer involved with Vanguard and denied any wrongdoing.

He said: “I’m not the director anymore.

“I helped my pal out who has a business down south and I helped him out a little bit and we did it for four years and this happens to be an issue and I’m like ‘What the f* is going on? Get me to f* off this. This is b*******.

“As far as I was concerned everything’s sorted. I helped out a pal and it’s f****** backfired on me and now I look like a c***.

“I don’t get involved with things that are no good.

“I’m just not part of it anymore. It’s too much drama.”

We pay for your stories and videos! Do you have a story or video for The Scottish Sun? Email us at scoop@thesun.co.uk or call 0141 420 5200