The National Youth Film Academy finally bites the dust - but not before one final Rip Off.

After a long and inglorious history of overpromising and underdelivering, it seems that the National Youth Film Academy has finally closed its doors, with its owner Rob Earnshaw shutting up shop and strolling off with his customers’ hard earned cash.

Numerous young people who have signed up and paid four figure sums for this year’s courses are being told they will not now be run and that their money has disappeared.

As a result the recent reviews of his notorious set up are in. They don’t make pleasant reading:

As well as these young hopefuls, tutors who have done work for the company have been left unpaid for months, with Earnshaw failing to answer emails and phone calls before coming up with a long stream of excuses, prevarications and downright lies, until finally admitting that they won’t get paid.

Meanwhile Earnshaw himself, happily wiping his hands and walking away from the mess he created, is now busy at work on a new venture with his partner Lauren Hendry; a cafe and fast food enterprise in Hexham called The Social Food Co.

True to form this latest business, while still only a few months old, has already garnered a somewhat sullied reputation, recently earning a stinking review from the Food Standards Agency no less. It found the cafe’s premises to be one where hygienic food handling and management of food safety were both marked as having “major improvement necessary”.

Running businesses of any kind is not, it seems, Earnshaw’s forte in life.

For the five years that he has hung around the fringes of the TV and Film business, Earnshaw has inflicted more heartache and suffering on new entrants to the industry than pretty much anyone, consistently over-promising and under-achieving and leaving a trail of unsatisfied customers poorer for their association with him.

Seeing him finally and ignominiously banished from our industry will be scant reward however for these unpaid tutors and course members, who now join the long list of the many other victims this individual has been responsible for creating over the years as a result of his appalling business practices and his habit of liquidating his companies and walking off with their money.

If the name of Rob Earnshaw pops up in association with any business of any kind in the future, customers, clients and suppliers should take due warning that they are very likely to lose their shirts if they trust him with their hard earned. Like so many have over the many years up to now.

**Important update**

If anyone has fallen victim to this NYFA scam and have paid for a course via a Direct Debit, which you did not receive, then you might be able to go to your bank and get your money back via their Direct Debit guarantee. A number of people who paid for their undelivered courses have got their full £1,300 refunds and the bank has gone back and extracted at least some of the payment from the company (and they are pursuing the rest).

The same goes for if you paid by credit card - if you didn't get what you paid for, you might be able to get your money bank from your bank that way. No guarantees but worth a try - and push hard if you get blown back.

Rob Earnshaw is not going to return any of the money that he has taken from people unless he is absolutely forced to, so worth trying to put the squeeze on him that way. He has clearly got it, given that he has "found" some to pay back the bank in question, so go and prise it out of his paws if you can.