Kitset home director pleads guilty to Fair Trading Act breaches

Emma Gestro, director of Get Design and Sales, was taken to court by the Commerce Commission for taking payments for kitset cabins when she didn’t have reasonable grounds to believe the goods would be supplied.

In 2017, we put out a warning advising consumers not to deal with Get Design and Sales. The kitset building company operated several websites, including mydiy.co.nz, kiwi-built.co.nz and econobach.co.nz, and boasted it had “NZ’s largest range of quality sheds and cabins”.

Customers were left thousands of dollars out of pocket after they paid for cabins that were never delivered. Several customers took the company to the Disputes Tribunal. Despite the tribunal ordering Get Design and Sales to provide refunds, it failed to comply.

Charges laid by the commission relate to Ms Gestro’s conduct with three customers between July 2016 and July 2017 when the company was placed in liquidation. Ms Gestro is due to be sentenced on 21 August 2020.

After the kitset home company was wound up, Ms Gestro set up a dating website called Private Event.

Ms Gestro was previously a director and joint shareholder of Magenta Marketing, which operated in liquidation from 1994 to 2002 before being removed from the Companies Register. During that period, she was also prosecuted for fraud and required to pay back $13,000 to a former employer.