TRADING Standards has dropped an investigation into a photography firm which customers claim has taken money but not supplied goods.

Officers said yesterday they have stopped trying to trace the owners of Blue Amigo in Little Clarendon Street, Oxford.

Despite previously telling the Oxford Mail it was not investigating the photo print company, it admitted problems were first reported in September.

Oxfordshire County Council spokesman Martin Crabtree said: “We are unable to take any further investigative action since there is no intelligence to suggest that the business is still trading or where the individuals behind the business are.”

Following the publication of several stories surrounding the troubled company, the Oxford Mail has heard from customers.

Ryan Scott, from Bicester, lost £175 when Blue Amigo took money for a series of wedding prints which it never supplied.

The 34-year-old said: “In September a lady from Blue Amigo rang me regarding a deal they were offering via email. My wife and I had just got married and decided to order some canvases as gifts.

“They took a payment of £175 over the phone but that was the last contact we ever received directly from the company.”

Other customers from around the UK contacted the Mail to say they used a deals-brokering website to buy products, but never received goods.

While the website sometimes refunded order money, the customers lost out on expensive postage costs which had been paid directly to Blue Amigo. And it emerged that the Advertising Standards Authority had intervened in a dispute with the company, which had been trading since 2007.

The Oxford Mail has made several attempts to contact managing director Julie Cook, who filed papers with Companies House to dissolve Blue Amigo on March 15.

Mr Crabtree added: “Trading Standards has received a number of referrals from its partner organisation, the National Citizens Advice Consumer Service about Blue and Miko Ltd trading as Blue Amigo in Little Clarendon Street.

“These relate in part, but not exclusively, to contractual problems over the failure to deliver photographic goods ordered and difficulties in contacting the business.

“We first made contact with the business in September and passed on details of the customers who had reported delivery failures.”

He said the firm provided some of the goods but the problem arose again in November.

He said: “We contacted the business again but received no response. We emailed, wrote and visited the business premises but, by early December, the shop was shut and we received no reply to our inquiries.”