Thanks, that pointed me in the right direction.
The usb analyser showed it as a HID from zhifengsoft. Once I had this it was easy to find many references online and the incompatibility with avrdude is well documented. The ProgISP software is specifically written for this programmer which is obviously why it works.
There are several hacks including on this forum (which failed to show in a search) http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,173058.0.html
The Original vendor was on Taobao but they don't exit any more.