Tag: LONDON QUANTUM

  • Vicious Circle of Stephen Ward’s and Dalriada’s pension scams.

    Vicious Circle of Stephen Ward’s and Dalriada’s pension scams.

    January 28/29 2021 saw the cross examination of Stephen Ward in Pension Life’s criminal case in the Denia court. Ward gave the judge an elaborate explanation as to how and why none of the Continental Wealth Management pension and investment scams were his fault.

    Ward provided the pension transfer “advice” to hundreds of Continental Wealth Management victims – facilitating the handing over of millions of pounds’ worth of personal and occupational pensions into the hands of well-known, firmly-established scammers. Once out of the relative safety of the UK, and into the offshore abyss, the scammers made millions out of undisclosed commissions on the victims’ life savings. The investments were, of course, largely worthless. Victims lost somewhere between a small percentage and a large percentage – with a few losing 100%. And a few more even going overdrawn on their pension accounts.

    Ward’s Spanish firm Premier Pension Solutions, worked as “sister company” to Darren Kirby’s and Jody Smart’s Continental Wealth Management. After Ark in 2011, Ward moved straight onto the Evergreen New Zealand QROPS liberation scam. And CWM did the cold calling to sign up 300 victims to the toxic £10 million pension scam and so-called “loans” from Ward’s own finance company – Marazion.

    Ark (and indeed Evergreen) victims may well want an answer to the question: why hasn’t Ward been prosecuted before now? The lack of any previous criminal proceedings against him, for the many other scams he was involved in, is – indeed – astonishing.

    Capita Oak, Westminster, Southlands, Headforte, London Quantum et al – could all have been prevented had Ward been behind bars. Victims of all of those scams might still have their pensions had it not been for Ward.

    Part of the answer may lie with Dalriada Trustees. The firm was appointed by the Pensions Regulator to the Ark schemes as independent trustee on 31st May 2011. Over £27 million worth of pensions had been transferred from safe, professionally-run pension schemes into the six Ark schemes. Nearly 500 people are affected – many of whom had received reciprocal “loans” on the advice of Stephen Ward and his very convincing associates. Ward had assured all the victims that the loans would be “tax free”. But, of course, HMRC does not share that view – and the tax trial is starting in March 2021.

    HMRC is looking to tax all those who did get “loans” and also all those who didn’t. HMRC’s argument is firstly that even if members didn’t get a loan, they had made the transfer with the intention of getting a loan, and secondly that they “made” a loan.

    One of the first questions I ever asked Dalriada back in 2013 (appointed by the Pensions Regulator – who registered the Ark schemes in the first place) was:

    “Why didn’t you bring criminal proceedings against Stephen Ward and all the other scammers who set up and ran Ark?”

    Dalriada’s answer was:

    “We didn’t think it was within our remit”.

    So what is (or was) Dalriada’s remit? And has it fulfilled that remit? And how much has it cost?

    DALRIADA’S REMIT:

    • To suspend the Ark schemes so that no further “loans” could be made; no further victims lost their pensions; no further toxic investments could be made
    • To investigate the schemes to find out how they had been run and where the money had gone
    • To recover the toxic investments and return the money to the schemes
    • To liaise with the members and keep them informed
    • To liaise with HMRC on the unauthorised payment tax liabilities

    The above points are all guesses on my part. Certainly, Dalriada has admitted that they didn’t really know where to start at the beginning. They had no idea what they would find, once they started investigating, and no clue as to how much work was going to be involved.

    Dalriada has, indeed, recovered some of the toxic investments in the Ark schemes. But communications with the members have been limp at best. Dalriada has spent a lot of time, effort and money on taking proceedings against the victims themselves to recover the “loans”, but seems to have spent zero time, effort or money on pursuing the scammers.

    Most important of all, Dalriada has not invested any of the money left in the Ark schemes – so members (victims) have missed out on the longest investment bull run in history. Bottom line: there’s been no growth in the value of the Ark funds – only shrinkage. Had the funds been invested in something as simple as a low-cost tracker fund, they could have grown by some 330% at least.

    Of the original £27 million in the Ark schemes, Dalriada has spent more than £7.4 million on trustees’ and lawyers’ fees between 31st May 2011 and 31st May 2020. But isn’t it reasonable to ask: “Why couldn’t Dalriada have spent some of that money on criminal proceedings against Stephen Ward and some (or all) of the other scammers?”

    Dalriada Trustees have been appointed to more than 100 pension scams in the past ten years (by the Pensions Regulator). But there is no evidence that any of the scammers – especially the prolific Stephen Ward – have ever had any CRIMINAL action taken against them by Dalriada in an effort to prevent further scams.

    The Mail’s financial reporter Tom Kelly (who has been covering the CWM criminal trial in Spain) has published an article about Dalriada and their trusteeship of pension scams.

    Kelly reports that “Pension scam victims have lost millions of pounds more to the government-appointed trustees hired to get their money back.” and that “Victims say Dalriada Trustees ‘inexplicably’ held their recovered retirement savings for years and then only paid a fraction of their money back.”

    Kelly has been to meet me in Spain several times. He attended the Denia court for the first set of cross examinations in 2020, and reports that “tens of thousands of savers had lost up to £10 billion in rogue schemes that looked safe because they were registered by HMRC and overseen by the Pensions Regulator”. 

    Kelly goes on to cite the case of one victim who waited seven years to have his £157,000 pension pot returned to him by Dalriada. But they deducted £90,000 in charges before handing it back to him. And this was after Dalriada had rescued the fund in full, before the scammers had managed to invest the money in toxic, commission-paying assets.

    With 5,400 pension scam victims having Dalriada as their trustees, it is perhaps time to ask whether this is a tenable solution. Scammers could, realistically, be forgiven for thinking that once Dalriada takes charge, this is merely a license for the next scam, and the next one, and the next one…… Because, Dalriada is never going to report the scammers for fraud. So they are free to keep on scamming people out of their pensions repeatedly.

    And Dalriada is free to keep on earning fees out of more and more scams which were registered by the Pensions Regulator and HMRC, and placed into their hands by the Pensions Regulator (and taxed by HMRC). Repeat, repeat, repeat. Vicious circle perpetuated by limp regulation, lazy trustees and stiff scammers.



  • DB transfers: FCA hasn’t a Scooby

    DB transfers: FCA hasn’t a Scooby

    The FC A hasn’t got a ****ing Scooby. The Federation of Consolidated Apathy has now proved way beyond reasonable doubt that it is clueless about pensions in general.  And worse – much worse – that it doesn’t understand the deadly problems with DB pension transfer advice.

    The Federation of Consolidated Apathy has published a video which deliberately misleads people into thinking that advisers will provide DB transfer advice which is in the victims’ interests.

    This incredibly boring video seems to have been produced by some clot called Mark Goold who claims to work for the “Communications Division” of the FC A. He clearly has no understanding of communications since he has made a video that is so incredibly monotonous and dreary that it is impossible to watch – and even harder to believe. Either Goold knows nothing about ten years’ worth of DB pension transfer scams – or he is deliberately ignoring it.

    Goold the goon says he “wants to talk about our expectations of financial advisers when they provide pension transfer advice”.  A noble aim – just a shame he did no research before opening his mouth (and putting his foot in it).  If he’d had even half a brain, he would have consulted the British Steelworkers before making such an utter fool of himself.  Equally, he could have consulted a few of the thousands of victims of DB scheme members who have been scammed over the last few years because of FCA-regulated transfer sign-offs.

    The one thing that Goold says that is true and accurate is “it will generally not be in a client’s best interests to leave a pension scheme that will provide them with a guaranteed and sustainable income when they retire”.

    But he does not say what action the FCA is proposing to take against the negligent – and, in some cases, fraudulent – FCA-regulated advisers who have been signing off such transfers for so many years.  These firms have facilitated widespread financial crime and this has led to the destruction of millions of pounds’ worth of pensions.  But the nits at the FCA are far too busy knitting to take any action against these firms.

    The FCA goon goes on to spout: “we would expect advisers should follow certain steps, ask certain questions and provide specific documentation when reviewing your personal situation and recommending something to you”. He then goes on to list a number of “steps” that should “generally be carried out” by advisers. But he forgets to mention that the unethical FCA-regulated transfer advisers will deliberately omit these steps. These rogue advisers may be relatively rare, but they will – between them – feed the majority of the scammers in the UK and offshore.

    Of course, the subject of “contingent” charging has not reared its ugly head. The Federation of Consolidated Apathy is obviously expecting advisers to make a choice:

    1. Advise to transfer and earn a fee or
    2. Advise not to transfer and earn nothing

    I expect ethical advisers will easily walk away empty handed – happy that they’ve done the right thing (and prevented a transfer to criminals). But that’s a bit like expecting that a regulator will do a bit of regulating between knitting sessions. There are, of course, plenty of decent advisers in the UK – but their reputation is called into question because of the few FCA-regulated snorters.

    Finally, after a load of excrutiatingly boring waffle about what the FCA “expects”, Goold gets to the most important question of all:

    “Did the adviser explain that the employer scheme provides a guaranteed income in retirement?  Did they explain that, if you transfer, you may run out of money. You may live longer than your pension does?” – how would you feel about that?

    Goold clearly comes from the planet Zogolob.  And he really ought to go back there asap before he poses any more daft questions such as:  “How would you feel about running out of money?”.  What the hell does he expect a client to say: “Fine, thank you.  I can just print some more if I need it.  Or if the money printer is out of ink, I’ll just go pick some from the money tree”.  Beam me up Scottie FFS!

    This moron then goes on to raise the very issue that the scammers use to dupe their victims: CONTROL.  The criminals of the financial services world use “control” as a powerful weapon to seduce clients into transferring their DB pensions – not so the member can have control but so the adviser has control.

    Having passed control of the pension over to an unscrupulous – and often criminal – adviser, the rogue FCA-regulated transfer sign-off then facilitates a number of fatal steps which will guarantee the destruction of the fund.  And, inevitably, will guarantee that the victim will run out of money.

    There are two types of crimes that then follow – depending on whether the victim is in the UK or offshore.

    Arguably, if the victim is based in the UK there may be less risk and more protection.  But you can ask the many thousands of scam victims who have lost their life savings as to whether this is true. The answer is likely to be that the actual protection is slightly less than an ashtray on a twist’n go.

    The Goold twerp should have asked not just the British Steelworkers but also the victims of the London Quantum scam; the Berkeley Burke, James Hay and Suffolk Life SIPPS scams; Ark; Capita Oak; Westminster; STM Fidecs/Trafalgar Multi Asset fund; Integrated Capabilities/Blackmore Global fund; GFS/Blackmore Global and dozens more. But, of course, he didn’t bother.

    These UK-based victims saw their funds being transferred to bogus occupational schemes or negligent SIPPS and QROPS providers. The money was then destroyed by being invested in worthless assets – such as store pods, car parking spaces, derelict German buildings, collapsible flats in Cape Verde and mouldy chia seeds.

    Offshore victims fare even worse in the hands of rogue commission-hungry scammers:

    1. The fund will be under the full control of a rogue “adviser” who could well be unqualified – and whose only mission is to rinse commissions out of the victim’s retirement money
    2. This adviser could well be with a firm which only has an insurance license (if it has any license at all) – so any investments made by the firm will have zero regulatory protection
    3. The funds will then be transferred to a QROPS.  And the degree of regulatory observance by the QROPS provider will depend on the jurisdiction.  Malta is now getting its act together, but Gibraltar still has no ombudsman or arbiter. And seems to actively encourage scams and scammers.  A QROPS may be entirely the wrong vehicle and a low-cost, UK-based SIPPS could be a much better solution.  However, leaving the pension where it was would, undoubtedly, have been the best choice (but wouldn’t have earned the scammers any commissions).
    4. The scammer, now fully in control of the victim’s life savings, will transfer the whole lot into an insurance “bond” with a rogue firm such as Old Mutual International, Friends Provident International, RL360 or Hansard.  This will earn the scammer 8% on the amount invested – and could lock the victim in to this arrangement for up to ten years.  The scammer will ignore the fact that he is committing a fraud.
    5. The “bond” provider will now claw back the commission paid to the scammer over the term of the contract – plus, of course, the life office’s own commission.
    6. The life office (Old Mutual, Friends Provident etc) will then offer the victim, and his scammer who now has total control over how the fund is invested, a selection of high-risk, expensive funds and structured notes which will pay the scammer further fat commissions. Many of these funds – such as Axiom, Premier New Earth, Mansion Student Accommodation etc will fail and become worthless. The high-risk structured notes – such as Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and Leonteq – will destroy most (if not all) of the victims’ funds.
    7. The scammer will lie to the victim and say that the “bond” is necessary for tax efficiency.  This, of course, is untrue since there are only any tax savings if the fund makes a profit – which it won’t.

    Goold goes on to mention that “Having more control over your pension money may be important to you but if you have to transfer your pension fund to enable you to do it, it may impact on your family and lifestyle.”

    Being obviously clueless, this moron forgets to mention that many of the victims of the devastating “impact” on their family and lifestyle are dying.  They are devastated by the loss of their valuable pensions and are facing a wretched, poverty-stricken retirement.  Many are considering suicide.  Some have already taken their own lives or died miserable deaths caused by stress.

     Goold plumbs new depths by claiming that the FCA “would also expect advisers to carry out a detailed comparison of the benefits available in the employers’ pension scheme against the benefits available in any proposed new arrangements”.  But he clearly hasn’t bothered to find out what the devastating consequences of the “new arrangements” are likely to be.

    Goold has also failed to mention that some of the transfer advice is given with only one single aim: to earn commission on the fund value.  The advice is almost always “yes, go ahead and transfer” – irrespective of whether it is obviously not in the victim’s interests. 

    An example of this is Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions who signed off many hundreds of DB pension transfers knowing full well that he was condemning the victim to certain death at the hands of the scammers who would gain control of the fund and would inevitably destroy it.

    There is no possible argument that Ward did not know how the victims’ funds were going to be invested – because he himself was doing the very same thing to his own clients. 

    In fact, the tactic is now changing so that the standard DB transfer advice is routinely “DON’T TRANSFER – IT IS NOT IN YOUR INTERESTS”. The victims are carefully prepared for this and are classified as “insistent” – so the transfer goes ahead anyway.

    Finally, Goold commits the ultimate in offensive indecency and suggests that victims should ask: “What are the death benefits available within the employers’ pension scheme against what are the death benefits available in any proposed new arrangement?”

    This cretin should have asked me before committing such a vile gaff.  I could have referred him to the case of one of the Continental Wealth Management victims – whose £415,000 Shell DB pension fund was totally destroyed.  The stress of facing poverty killed him in July 2019.  He had not one single penny left.  His ex wife had to pay for his funeral.

    FCA morons such as Goold should not talk about “death benefits”. Goold, and his expensive boss Andrew Bailey, should try talking to the pension scam victims so that they understand just how dreadfully the FCA has failed the public.

  • Fighting pension scams – Qualifications

    Fighting pension scams – Qualifications

    Fighting pension scams needs to be done logically and methodically.  Decent advisers need to use high standards to help fight scams.  If these standards become the norm, the scammers won’t survive and flourish so easily.

    Fighting pension scams – Qualifications

    Most qualified advisers want nothing to do with pension scams.  Many offshore firms employ advisers who have not passed the required exams.  Even if an adviser has qualified, he or she must still be registered.  We recently surveyed a number of offshore advisory firms:

    Belgravia Wealth     Square Mile      Robusto   Spectrum     Blevins Franks     Seagate Wealth     Woodbrook Group     Globaleye

    Lots of offshore advisers consider they don’t need to be qualified.  Let’s have a look at an example:

    The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) is the largest and most widely respected professional body for those who work in the securities. The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) is a professional body dedicated to building trust in the insurance and financial planning profession.

    All financial advisory firms should list their advisers, provide clear details of each adviser’s qualifications and a link to the institute’s register showing evidence of the qualifications.

    Here is a useful guide to qualifications: Qualified Adviser for QROPS

     “Qualifications are not the be all/end all.  A certificate does not prove professional competence in the field , ethics or experience. But the public have to start their due diligence somewhere.”

    Sadly, there are a few well qualified advisers who are the exception to the rule.  Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions ran numerous scams:

    Ark     Evergreen     Capita Oak     Westminster     Southlands     Headforte

    Randwick Estates     Bollington Wood     Hammerley     Halkin     Feldspar

    and many others such as Westminster and London Quantum – ruining thousands of lives.  Several of his schemes are under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.  He also provided the transfer advice in the Continental Wealth scam.

    Any decent adviser will want to be fully qualified.  And registered.  The rest should go back to selling snake oil.  But consumers must remember there are exceptions.  Some regulated firms get it wrong.  Qualified advisers can get it wrong.

    The trick is to know all the questions to ask.  Here’s where the ten standards come in handy:

    1. Firm must be fully regulated – with licenses for insurance and investment advice
    2. Advisers must be qualified to the right standard pension-life.com/ten-essential-standards-for-pension-advice
    3. Firm must have Professional Indemnity Insurance
    4. Clients must have comprehensive fact finds and risk profiles
    5. Firm must operate adequate compliance procedures
    6. Advisers must not abuse insurance bonds
    7. Clients must understand the investment policy
    8. All fees, charges and commissions must be disclosed
    9. Investors must know how their investments are performing
    10. Firm must keep a log of all customer complaints

    Fighting pension scams – why qualifications are so essential

    If clients used only firms that tick all ten Standards boxes, it would be harder for the scammers to get business.  Decent firms who care about their reputation should make sure there are clear links to all advisers’ qualifications.  Make it easy for the consumer to understand how to check that the stated qualifications are genuine.  And help educate people to understand what qualifications are required.

    All too often, advisers claim to have qualifications that don’t exist – or that aren’t appropriate for investment advice.  For example, some advisers who are assuring clients they can advise on pensions and investments, only have qualifications suitable for mortgages.  Or worse still, no qualifications at all.  Whatever the adviser says his qualifications are, the client must be able to double check.

    You wouldn’t go to an unqualified solicitor would you?  So don’t use an unqualified financial adviser.  Being qualified goes hand in hand with being regulated.

  • Fighting pension scams: Regulation

    Fighting pension scams: Regulation

    Fighting pension scams: Regulation

    If it was easy to stop pension scams, everyone would be doing it.  Clearing up the mess left behind a pension scam is a huge challenge.  This is why clear international standards need to be recognised and adopted.  The scammers are like flocks of vultures.  If people only used regulated firms, they could avoid a lot of scams.

     

    Here is our list of standards

    1. Firm must be fully regulated – with licenses for insurance and investment advice
    2. Advisers must be qualified to the right standard
    3. Firm must have Professional Indemnity Insurance
    4. Clients must have comprehensive fact finds and risk profiles
    5. Firm must operate adequate compliance procedures
    6. Advisers must not abuse insurance bonds
    7. Clients must understand the investment policy
    8. All fees, charges and commissions must be disclosed
    9. Investors must know how their investments are performing
    10. Firm must keep a log of all customer complaints

    Why is regulation so important?:

    • If a firm sells insurance, it must have an insurance license.
    • If a firm gives investment advice, it must have an investment license.

    Many advisers will claim that if they only have an insurance license, they can advise on investments if an insurance bond is used.  This practice must be outlawed, because this is how so many scams happen.

    Most countries have an insurance and an investment regulator.  They provide licenses to firms.  Some regulators are better than others.  Most regulators do some research and only give licenses to decent firms.

    History tells us that most pension scams start with unlicensed firms.  Here are some examples:

    LCF Bond, Blackmore Bond, Blackmore Global Fund, LM, Axiom and Premier New Earth – all high risk failures.  The investors have lost some or all of their money in these bonds and funds.  They were mostly sold by advisers without an investment license.  Investors lost well over £1 billion.  Advisers (introducers) earned £millions in commissions.

     

    Continental Wealth Management invested 1,000 clients’ funds in high-risk structured notes.  Investors started with £100 million.  Most have lost at least half.  Some have lost everything.  Continental Wealth Management had no license from any regulator in any country.

     

    Pension Life blog - Lack of knowledge leads to loss of funds - rogue advisersSerial scammers such as Peter Moat, Stephen Ward, Phillip Nunn, and XXXX XXXX  all ran unlicensed firms.  Peter Moat operated the Fast Pensions scam which cost victims over £21 million.  Stephen Ward operated the Ark, Evergreen, Capita Oak, Westminster and London Quantum pension scams which cost victims over £50 million.  XXXX XXXX operated the Trafalgar pension scam which cost victims over £21 million.

    Phillip Nunn operates the Blackmore Global Fund which has cost victims over £40 million.  Serial scammer David Vilka has been promoting this fund.  Over 1,000 people may have lost their pensions.

     

    Firms that give unlicensed advice are breaking the law.  Unlicensed advisers often use insurance bonds.  These bonds pay high commissions.  The funds these advisers use also pay high commissions.  The advisers get rich.  The clients get fleeced.  The funds get destroyed.  Insurance bonds such as OMI, FPI, SEB and Generali are full of worthless unregulated funds, bonds and structured notes.

     

    Unlicensed firms hide charges from their clients.  Most victims say they would never have invested had they known how expensive it was going to be.

    Hidden charges can destroy a fund – even without investment losses.  Licensed advisers normally disclose all fees and commissions up front.  This way, the client knows exactly how much the advice is going to cost.

     

    People can avoid being victims of pension scammers.  Using properly regulated firms is one way.   An advisory firm should have both an insurance license and an investment license.  Don’t fall for the line: “we don’t need an investment license if we use an insurance bond”.  Bond providers such as OMI, FPI, SEB and Generali still offer high-risk investments.  The insurance bond provides zero protection.  And the bond charges will make investment losses much worse.

     

    YOU WOULDN’T USE AN UNLICENSED DOCTOR.

    SO DON’T USE AN UNLICENSED FINANCIAL ADVISER.

     

     

  • Transferring pensions to scammers – the ABC of shame

    Transferring pensions to scammers – the ABC of shame

    HOW DO PENSION SCAMS WORK?

    Every pension scam starts with a negligent transfer.  Ceding providers hand over millions of pounds to pension scammers every year.  Firms – from Aviva to Zurich – ignore warnings by regulators and HMRC.  The providers tick their boxes; the scammers make their millions; the victims are ruined.

    The ceding providers have something significant in common with the scammers.  When we expose some of the scammers, their lawyers swing into action.  I once had letters from Carter Ruck, Mishcon de Reya and DWF land on my desk all in one day.  The scammers’ lawyers bleat loudly about their “poor” clients’ reputations.

    Every pension scam starts with a negligent transfer

    But the ceding providers are just as bad: their lawyers think it is fine to facilitate financial crime.  Here’s an extract from recent letter from one of them:

    “You state you have “hard evidence” that our customers “have suffered serious loss because of our negligence”.  You
    have not provided any such evidence. Please therefore produce such ‘hard evidence’ by return.”

    This lawyer went on to request evidence that the provider ought to have known that the receiving scheme in
    question was a scam.  She went on to state that my allegations were “wholly unfounded” and to demand that I take down this blog:

    PENSION OMBUDSMAN COMPLAINTS AGAINST NEGLIGENT CEDING TRUSTEES

    But this pension provider has given me no reason to take the blog down – and no justification for the claim that the firm is “innocent” of handing over victims’ pensions to obvious scammers.  Back in 2010, the Pensions Regulator warned providers about transferring pension funds to scams:

    “Any administrator who simply ticks a box and allows a transfer post July 2010 is failing in their duty as a trustee and as such are liable to compensate the beneficiary.”

    But the providers have studiously ignored the regulator’s warning for nine years.  And thousands have lost their pensions as a result of this sickening negligence.

    Transferring pensions to scammers

    Here is an “A to Z” of the pensions industry’s negligence in handing over thousands of pensions in defiance of numerous warnings since 2010.  Note: to my knowledge not a single administrator has voluntarily compensated their victims – and all have emphatically denied they did anything wrong.

    Transferring pensions to scammers – the ABC of shame

    Aviva: Second only to Aegon in our list of shame, Aviva transferred numerous pensions from October 2013 onwards.  This was well after the Pensions Regulator’s “Scorpion” warning.  The largest of these was £258,684.05 at the request of well-known scammer Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions.  Ward had been behind the £27 million Ark liberation scam in 2010.  On 21st January 2015, Aviva’s Robert Palmer told me they needed no help or advice with avoiding negligent transfers to obvious scams.  One month later, Aviva handed over £23,500 to the GFS scam.

    British Steel: Long before the much-publicised handing over of multiple members to scammers in 2018, British Steel was handing over pensions to the Hong Kong GFS QROPS scam in 2014 .  Mainly advised by serial scammer David Vilka of Square Mile International Financial Services in the Czech Republic, the GFS scam invested hundreds of victims’ funds in UCIS funds such as Blackmore Global.

    Clerical Medical: Another disgraceful firm with a long history of handing over pensions to Ark, Capita Oak, Westminster and GFS in 2014.

    This A to Z of shame goes on and on – and includes all the big names (who should have known better):

     

     

  • FCA boss £589,000 – Whistleblowing team £500,000

    FCA boss £589,000 – Whistleblowing team £500,000

    Pension Life Blog - FCA boss £589,000 - Whistleblowing team £500,000THE DIZZEE RASCALS AT THE FCA:

    My exasperation and disgust at the FCA’s incompetence has for years been very profound.  However, learning that Andrew Bailey – CEO of the FCA – gets paid 18% more than the whole whistleblowing team of 12, has made me feel two things:

    1. Enormous respect for the gentlemanly and (IMHO) restrained manner in which Henry Tapper has written his blog about the FCA and Debbie Gupta.  The latter is blaming IFAs for “failures to call out bad practice” and claims her “view of the industry is not as positive as it could be”.
    2. Sick

     

    DEBBIE GUPTA – FCA’S CO-DIRECTOR OF LIFE INSURANCE AND FINANCIAL ADVICE SUPERVISION

    I have never come across Debbie Gupta before.  I am wondering what planet she has been on for the past six years.  Victims, concerned members of the financial services industry and I have literally been hammering at the FCA’s door repeatedly.  And all we have to show for it are red knuckles and chipped teeth from excessive gnashing.

    In his blog, Henry quite rightly points out that “The spirit of collaboration will win, confrontation won’t.”  It is a well-known fact that one wins more battles with honey than with vinegar.  But two terrible wrongs have to be righted: Gupta must learn not to spout utter garbage that she knows nothing about.  And Andrew Bailey must be sacked.

    Let us be clear: the FCA is an embarrassment to Britain.

    The cost of the FCA’s many failures is borne by IFAs in terms of levies to the FSCS as well as soaring professional indemnity insurance premiums. And the thousands of victims whose lives have been destroyed by fraudsters operating under the very nose of the FCA.

    Pension Life Blog - FCA boss £589,000 - Whistleblowing team £500,000Before Debbie Gupta sticks her big foot in her mouth any further, I would suggest she attempts to learn something about scams, scammers and scamees.  She should come and spend a week with me. Sit up until midnight talking distraught victims out of suicide a couple of times.  She should go to Port Talbot with Al Rush and talk to some steelworkers and hear their tragic stories for herself.

    Finally, Gupta should take a long hard look at the number of FCA-registered firms that have facilitated or committed financial crime.  And then she should not just take back her ill-conceived words, but apologise for the profound disrespect and contempt she has shown the British advisory profession.

    I have experienced at first hand how difficult (impossible) it is to get through to the FCA.  Last year, I wrote a blog about my last visit. I wonder what more I could have done to “collaborate” with somebody – anybody – at their magnificent offices.  I came pretty close to taking all my clothes off and singing “Bonkers” by Dizzee Rascal while shaving my head and reading Tolley’s Pensions Taxation. But still the FCA refused to speak to me.  Even the guy in the post room made it clear I was a blooming nuisance when I handed in my whistleblowing report. (Which was, of course, ignored – and probably shredded).

    The FCA needs to do a number of things to become an effective regulator – and none of them is particularly difficult or challenging:

    • Stop paying ridiculous, offensively-high salaries to no-hoper executives like Andrew Bailey.  Bailey has shown he has neither the inclination nor the ability to run a regulatory authority.  Throwing away nearly £600k a year on such a failure isn’t going to make him want to change and start doing a bit of regulating from time to time.  Bailey is laughing all the way to the bank as he sits in his luxurious office and does SFA at the FCA.  At the industry’s and public’s expense.
    • Buy some ladders.  Window cleaners known how to use them – so I’m sure the nitwits at the FCA could try to copy them.  The fat, low-hanging fruit only account for a tiny percentage of the offenders – all the really bad guys are at the top of the tree.
    • Take action against FCA-registered scammers.  One appalling example is Gerard Associates which helped Stephen Ward scam 100 victims out of their pensions in 2014 and into toxic, high-risk, high-commission investments such as imaginary eucalyptus plantations.  The scam, London Quantum, was masterminded by Ward and used to ruin dozens of victims – including a police officer.  Gerard Associates provided the FCA-regulated advice.  And remains FCA authorised to this day (even though it is in liquidation).
    • Buy a bunch of hearing aids.  And listen to people.  To IFAs and the industry in the UK and offshore; to the public; to me.
    • Take part in Andy Agathangelou’s monthly Scams and Scandals conference call – and learn a huge amount from experts and victims alike.
    • Update the FCA’s Whistleblowing section on the website.  It is three years out of date.  Reach out and invite the industry and the public to report suspicious activity – make it easy for people who take the time to stick their necks out.  Welcome them with open arms and show them you care.  And actually do something about the whistleblowing reports (don’t just shred them like they did with mine).
    • Demote Debbie Gupta to Junior on the Whistleblowing team – and pay her £41k a year like the other 12.  Make her learn what this industry is really about.  And teach her to keep her mouth shut until she begins to understand the seriousness of what she is talking about.  Once she has learned some sense and memorised the immortal words of Dizzee Rascal: “Everybody says I got to get a grip, but I let sanity give me the slip”. She might then be ready to do a bit of regulating.

    Pension Life Blog - FCA boss £589,000 - Whistleblowing team £500,000All the above will save the FCA nearly three quarters of a million pounds a year.

    It will only cost a couple of hundred quid for a few dozen hearing aids and ladders.  Andy Agathangelou and his team will give their advice for free. I know several dozen victims who will happily help out.  By getting rid of the dross at the FCA, and providing just a bit of training for staff in the reception area and post room (as well as all the way up to the board room). It should be possible to turn this embarrassing, limp failure into something half decent.

    I do hope the FCA will like some of my above ideas – after all “There’s nothing crazy ’bout me”.

     

     

     

  • Time for all pension providers to wake up and stop pension scams

    Time for all pension providers to wake up and stop pension scams

    The recent PSIG (Pension Scams Industry Group) Scams Survey Pilot 2018 has identified seven “key” findings in their survey. As scam watchers, we are well aware of these points and are, of course, glad they have been highlighted.

    PSIG’s key finding are set out below.  So let us admit one key fact:

    ALL PENSION SCAMS START WITH A TRANSFER BY A CEDING PENSION PROVIDER.

    It is interesting that PSIG chose three particular providers to give their answers to the questionnaire sent out:  XPS Pensions Group, Phoenix Life Assurance Company and Standard Life Assurance Company.  I have no doubt they chose these three providers because of their extensive first-hand expertise at facilitating financial crime.  In the Capita Oak and Westminster scams – distributed and administered by serial scammers XXXX and Stephen Ward – and now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office – Phoenix Life and Standard Life handed over dozens of pensions to the scammers.  In Phoenix Life’s case, the total came to nearly half a million pounds’ worth, and in Standard Life’s case it was well over one million.

    While there is, of course, substantial hard evidence that both the Pensions Regulator (formerly OPRA) and HMRC had been giving the industry plenty of warnings about scams long before the Scorpion Campaign was published on Valentine’s Day in 2013, it is also true that providers such as Phoenix Life, Standard Life – and other favourite financial crime facilitators such as Aegon, Friends Life, Legal & General, Prudential, Royal London, Scottish Life and Scottish Widows – carried on handing over millions to the scammers well into 2014, 2015 and beyond.  And, in fact, they are still at it today.

    The “Key Findings” do throw up some interesting facts:

    “Information on scams is not readily available at an organisational level”.

    Seriously?  Don’t these organisations know how to do research?  Do they really not know what to look for?  They’ve had enough experience over the years – and have had enough examples of spending vast amounts of time trying to cook up reasons to deny complaints against their incompetence for handing over pensions to scammers – to write a whole encyclopedia about scams.

    Organisations (such as Phoenix Life and Standard Life) could try talking to TPAS, or tPR, or the FCA, or the SFO, or Dalriada Trustees, or regulators in Malta, the IoM, Gibraltar, Dubai or Hong Kong.  Or some of the thousands of victims – who have lost their pensions due to the incompetence and callousness of the ceding providers – who would readily fill in the blanks.  There really is no shortage of readily-available, free information.  They just need to take the time and trouble to ask for it.  It really isn’t difficult.  They just have to put their box-ticking pencils down for a few minutes.

    “The Scams Code is seen as a good basis for due diligence”

    I agree – it is really great.  But it is also 78 pages long.  Few people have to the time to read, understand or remember such long documents (with too many long words and not enough pictures).  What would be helpful would be to get a few of the worst offenders: Aegon, Aviva, Friends Life, Legal & General, Phoenix, Prudential, Royal London, Scottish Life, Scottish Widows, Standard Life and Zurich, in a room at the same time – and bang their heads together.  And threaten them that if they don’t get their acts together and stop handing over pensions to the scammers, they will be made to read and memorise the 78-page Scams Code and recite it every morning before coffee break.  Twice.  Then snap all their box-ticking pencils in half, and JOB DONE!  It really isn’t rocket science – there are usually some hints which are as subtle as a brick, such as: the sponsoring employer doesn’t exist; or the member lives in Scunthorpe and is transferring to a scheme whose sponsoring employer is based in Cyprus.  Or Hong Kong.  Now, I know there was a bit of a hiccup with the Royal London v Hughes case when Justice Morgan overturned the Ombudsman’s determination.  But dear old Hughes had probably had a few Babychams too many – and it had slipped his mind that the law is supposed to be about justice and common sense.  And that just because a particular piece of legislation has been written by an ass, it doesn’t have to be interpreted with stupidity.

    “Significant time and effort goes into protecting members from scams”

    This, of course, may be true.  I only get to see the cases where the negligent ceding providers do hand over the pensions to the scammers.  I rarely get to see the ones that have a narrow escape.  But what worries me is that I am in the process of making complaints to the ceding providers who have handed over pensions to the scammers, and not a single one of them thinks they have done anything wrong.  So, if they do spend “significant time and effort” doing the protecting bit, how come so many of them still fail so badly?  And then try to deny they failed.  These providers spend very significant amounts of time and effort writing long, boring letters about how they did nothing wrong – letters which must have taken them at least an hour to write.  And yet they won’t spent two minutes checking – and stopping – transfers to obvious scams.

    “The more detailed the due diligence, the more suspicious traits are identified”

    I am a bit suspicious that this indicates a touch of porky pies here.  I’ve never seen any evidence of ANY due diligence by the ceding providers.  A bloke at Aviva once told me that they spent thousands on research and due diligence – but I see no evidence of it.  The problem is, the ceding providers don’t know what they don’t know.  And, to coin one of my favourite phrases: “they don’t know the questions to ask, and even if they did then they wouldn’t understand the answers”.

    Interestingly, if – instead of repeatedly spending hours denying they did anything wrong when they handed over millions of pounds’ worth of pensions to the scammers – they spent some time talking to me and the victims trying to learn what went wrong and what due diligence should have gone into preventing a dodgy transfer, they might learn how to stop failing so badly.

    SIPPS (including international SIPPS) are the vehicle of choice by scammers

    Agreed.  But the scammers still love the good old QROPS.  But whether it is a SIPPS or a QROPS – both of which are just “wrappers” at the end of the day, it is about what goes inside the wrappers.  Where the scammers make their money is in the kickbacks: 8% on the pointless, expensive insurance bond from OMI, SEB, Generali, RL360, Friends Provident etc., and then more fat commissions on the expensive funds or structured notes.

    “Quality of adviser tops the list of practitioner concerns, with member awareness a close second”

    And hereby lies one of the main problems: ceding providers don’t know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.  And that is because they don’t ask.  And they don’t learn from their mistakes when they get it wrong.  And they don’t care when they hand the pensions over to the bad guys and their former member is now financially ruined and contemplating suicide.  Instead of trying to use their appalling mistakes to improve their performance and understand what “quality” actually means, and how to tell the difference between good and bad quality, they only care about avoiding responsibility for their own failings.

    The problem about “member awareness” is that most people assume their ceding provider will do some sort of due diligence.  They think that words like “Phoenix Life”, “Prudential” and “Standard Life” convey some sort of professionalism or duty of care.  Most members are simply unaware of the appalling track record of these providers – and the extraordinary and exhaustive lengths to which they will go to avoid being brought to justice for their negligence and laziness.

    “Sharing of intelligence would help avoid duplication of effort”

    Oh, how heartily I agree!  I remember a year or so ago, I shared some intelligence and a few beers with a nice chap from Scottish Widows.  We met at one of Andy Agathangelou’s symposiums in London – the subject of which was pension scams.  The Pensions Regulator was there, Dalriada Trustees were there, Pension Bee were there, lots of interested parties were there (including an American insurer from Singapore), and a couple of victims.  I gave a joint presentation with one of the victims who described how he had been scammed and how his provider had handed over his pension so easily – well after the Scorpion watershed.  The nice chap from Scottish Widows asked the victim why he hadn’t called the Police.  The victim replied: “I am the Police”.

    It was very telling that the room wasn’t full of delegates from Aviva, Phoenix Life, Prudential, Standard Life etc.  None of them were interested.

    Not a single provider has ever phoned me up to ask for advice, or to arrange to speak to some victims to learn something about how they were scammed and how and why their ceding providers had failed them so badly.  There are so many victims all over the UK and the rest of the world.  And what they all share is a passion to try to prevent other people from being scammed by the bad guys and failed by the bad pension providers.  So this invaluable intelligence is freely available.

    Until and unless the providers develop a conscience, they are going to continue to fuel the pension scam industry – and nothing will change.  And the 79-page code might just as well be consigned to the bathrooms of Aegon, Aviva, Friends Life, Legal & General, Phoenix, Prudential, Royal London, Scottish Life, Scottish Widows, Standard Life and Zurich.

     

     

  • Scammers are criminals. So why aren’t they in jail?

    Scammers are criminals. So why aren’t they in jail?

    Scammers are criminals, so why are they not being prosecuted?As 2018 draws to a close, a recap is in order to review the year’s progress in the war against pension scammers. Let us not forget – in the immortal words of the Pensions Regulator’s Lesley Titcombe: “scammers are criminals“. However, the sad truth is that most of them have not been prosecuted or jailed.

    The vast majority of the well-known pension scammers are still roaming free, busy thinking up yet more life-destroying schemes to make them rich and the victims poor.  Whilst the scammers enjoy champagne this New Year’s Eve, many victims will be worrying themselves sick about their bleak financial future.

    The Pensions Regulator, the Serious Fraud Office, the Insolvency Service, crime enforcement agencies and courts all seem to drag their feet when it comes to actually bringing charges against these criminals. Yet we see people being locked up for renting out caravans to help vulnerable homeless families! I would love it if this was a short and sweet blog, with many happy endings.  But, alas, the scams are plentiful and the victims are left uncompensated for their losses.

    Let’s have a quick round up of where we are with the scams and scammers.  And remember: all the thousands of victims want to see the scammers sent to jail and the keys thrown away so they can’t ruin any more innocent people’s lives.

    5G Futures

    5G Futures: in May 2013 Garry John Williams and Susan Lynn Huxley were suspended as trustees of the 5G Futures pension scheme, and from trust schemes in general. Pi Consulting was appointed as the new trustee by the Pensions Regulator.

    About 400 people had invested a total of £20m into the 5G Futures scheme – which was invested in high-risk, illiquid off-shore investments, with insufficient diversification making them completely unsuitable for pension scheme investments. There was no due diligence exercised by Williams and Huxley – and the scheme records were a mess.

    The scheme operated pension liberation through ‘loans’ to members. Williams and Huxley were found to have taken very high commissions on the investments – taking nearly £900,00 in one year alone.

    One of the most worrying things, however, is that the pension scammers don’t just leave the pensions industry and dedicate themselves to helping their many distressed victims – they start up all over again:

    Garry Williams and Sue Huxley went on to run Corporate Futures.eu

    Neither Garry Williams nor Sue Huxley has ever been convicted or jailed.

    Ark

    Stephen Ward: (this will not be the last time you hear this name in this blog) was the mastermind behind this scam (dating back to 2010).   It was his first known scam – but by no means his last one. What is left of the Ark fund, stands still frozen, in the hands of Dalriada Trustees, who continue to take their yearly costs and fees from what little is left.  Dalriada has done nothing to ensure the scammers are prosecuted – saying it is “not within their remit”. The victims of the Ark scam also have the heavy hand of HMRC hanging over them.  And let us not forget that it was HMRC who happily registered this scam and failed to withdraw the registration when they discovered that Stephen Ward was operating pension liberation fraud.

    Dalriada has never reported Stephen Ward to the police as it is not “within their remit” to ensure the scammers are prosecuted.

    In 2018 we saw Stephen Ward being banned from acting as a pension trustee. Eight years after his first scam, he has still not been imprisoned for the millions of pounds’ worth of life savings he has destroyed and the thousands of lives he has ruined.

    Other prominent figures in the Ark scam were Julian Hanson – who went on to play a key role in the Friendly Pensions scam; George Frost who went on to operate a new pension liberation scam using truffle trees as investments; Andrew Isles who went on to sell his accountancy business, Isles and Storer to LB Group; Peter Moat of Blu Debt Management who went on to operate the Fast Pensions scam.  None of these scammers has ever been convicted or jailed.

    Axiom

    Another pension liberation scam, which saw victims with HMRC tax demands of 55%. Rex Ashcroft of Wealth Protection International was one of the main introducers of this scam. According to his Linkedin profile, he offers business development strategy planning for the UK, Spain, Portugal and France.  He also offers “day-to-day application of wealth protection strategies”.  Ashcroft lied to Axiom victims telling them they could access part of their pensions and not pay tax on the cash they took out.

    Rex Ashcroft has never been convicted or jailed.

     

    Blackmore Global FundPension Life blog - Scammers are criminals, so why are they not being prosecuted? Blackmore Global

    The Blackmore Global Fund saw UK-based victims conned into transferring their pension funds into QROPS in Malta and Hong Kong between 2014 and 2016.  After the transfers, the funds were invested in the Blackmore Global UCIS fund (Unregulated Collective Investment Scheme) and the victims were locked in (unknowingly) for ten years.  Huge commissions were taken by the introducers, Aspinal Chase and David Vilka of Square Mile International and the fund managers Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh.  Victims locked into ten-year fixed terms are still waiting for a copy of an independent audit – which was promised back in 2016! Despite media attention from the BBC, victims still do not know how much of their pension fund – if any – is left.

    David Vilka, Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh have never been convicted or jailed.  Blackmore Global Group is still being promoted by Phillip Nunn!  Nunn and McCreesh had been the main lead generators in the Capita Oak scam – earning nearly £1 million in the process.

    Capita Oak

    This was another of Stephen Ward´s scams – on which he worked closely with his pensions lawyer Alan Fowler (ex Stevens and Bolton Solicitors) and his sidekick Bill Perkins.  Ward carried out the transfer administration for this scam which was mainly operated by XXXX XXXX who offered victims 5% Thurlston “loans”.   Over 300 victims are facing the partial or total loss of their pensions and are also now being pursued by HMRC for tax liabilities on the “loans”.

    Capita Oak – like Ark – was placed in the hands of Dalriada Trustees.  But Dalriada has never reported Stephen Ward – or any of the other scammers – to the police as it is not “within their remit” to ensure the scammers are prosecuted.

    Stephen Ward, Alan Fowler, Bill Perkins and XXXX XXXX have never been convicted or jailed (although XXXX XXXX is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office). 

    Continental Wealth Management

    Pension Life blog - Scammers are criminals, so why are they not being prosecuted? Stephen Ward’s firm Premier Pension Solutions (in Moraira, Spain) was the “sister” firm of Continental Wealth Management, run by scammer Darren Kirby.  This was one of the biggest single scams – known as CWM – with around 1,000 victims losing part or all of their life savings. Other scammers involved were Anthony Downs, Dean Stogsdill, Alan Gorringe, Richard Peasley, and Neil Hathaway.

    This scam was promoted by cold-calling victims and promising unrealistically high returns and “capital protection”.  Darren Kirby and Anthony Downs used the victims’ funds to invest in totally unsuitable, high-risk, fixed-term structured notes.  This scam saw huge commissions paid by the life offices – Old Mutual International, SEB, and Generali – as well as by the structured note providers: Leonteq, Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, and BNP Paribas to this unregulated firm.  Let us not forget that this was without question financial crime and was facilitated by the life offices.

    Old Mutual International, run by ex IoM regulator Peter Kenny, was the leading life office which facilitated the CWM scam.  Generali and SEB also routinely accepted business from these known scammers and unlicensed advisers.

    Stephen Ward, Darren Kirby, Anthony Downs, Dean Stogsdill, Alan Gorringe, Richard Peasley, and Neil Hathaway have never been convicted or jailed.

    ELYSIAN FUELS

    James Hay and Suffolk Life were accepting Elysian shares for liberation purposes

    Another Stephen Ward creation which was operating 80% liberation with the full cooperation of the SIPPS providers James Hay and Suffolk Life.  The SIPPS providers and the victims could face tax charges of up to £20 million from HMRC.

     

     

     

    Despite clear evidence that Stephen Ward pushed this scam in emails to Alan Fowler and Bill Perkins, neither Ward nor Fowler nor Perkins have ever been prosecuted or jailed.

     

    EVERGREEN RETIREMENT TRUST NZ QROPS PENSION LOAN SCAM

    A New Zealand QROPS scam with Marazion pension loans

    When Ark got shut down, Stephen Ward went straight to New Zealand to set up his next pension liberation scam with Simon Swallow of Charter Square.  A further 300 victims were scammed out of over £10 million and conned into Marazion “loans” AND locked into the Evergreen scheme for five years.  After the five years victims were told: ´Despite our best efforts, Evergreen has not been as successful as we had originally hoped.´  Evergreen was wound up April 208.

    This scam was promoted by Darren Kirby’s Continental Wealth Management which cold called the victims.

     

    Stephen Ward, Darren Kirby, and Simon Swallow have never been convicted or jailed.

    Fast Pensions

    Pension Life blog - Scammers are criminals, so why are they not being prosecuted?Fast Pensions, run by Peter and Sara Moat was wound up by the High Court 30th May 2018, after the six companies and 15 occupational schemes were put into liquidation in March 2018. £21m was transferred into the schemes under Peter Moat’s set of Blu loan companies. However, there was no information on the pension portfolios and what happened to the investors’ funds.  Other persons named as being involved in this scam are Miss Jane Wright (who acted as a trustee) and a Mr Chapman. Maladministration was noted by the ombudsman back in 2016.  However, nothing was done to stop the Moats.

    It was determined that there is no doubt this was a scam.

    Peter and Sara Moat and their accomplices have never been convicted or jailed.

    Friendly Pensions Limited (FPL)

    Back in January of 2018, the Pensions Regulator asked the High Court to act on their behalf in the Friendly Pensions matter.  Scammers: David Austin, Susan Dalton, Alan Barratt and Julian Hanson (also involved in ARK) were ordered to pay back £13.7 million they took from their victims and banned from being pension trustees. However, Dalriada the independent trustee appointed by TPR to take over the running of the schemes, is in charge of confiscating the scammers’ assets for the benefit of their victims. (Who knows how long this could take: how long is a piece of string?) As yet, no compensation has been offered to the victims.

    David Austin, Susan Dalton, Alan Barratt and Julian Hanson and their accomplices have never been convicted or jailed.  However, there have recently been some arrests – so let us hope this results in maximum sentences.

    HEADFORTE AND SOUTHLANDS

    Two bogus “occupational pension schemes” set up for pension liberation fraud by Stephen Ward after the Evergreen QROPS scam hit the rocks (when HMRC removed Evergreen from the QROPS list).  Victims have no idea where or how their pensions are invested.  The pensions are allegedly invested in “The Treasury Plus Fund” (whatever that might be – and it is not likely to be anything good) and the trustee is Ward’s bogus trustee firm Dorrixo Alliance.

    Nobody knows the total aggregate value of lost pensions and tax liabilities Ward has caused – we hazard a guess at a figure in the region of £100 million +.

    Stephen Ward has never been convicted or jailed.

    Henley Retirement Benefit Scheme

    Another double act by Stephen Ward and XXXX XXXX.  This was the “sister” scheme to Capita Oak.  Ward did the transfer administration – from safe, well-known and regulated pension providers to this bogus occupational scheme run by XXXX.

    Neither Stephen Ward nor XXXX XXXX  has ever been convicted or jailed.

    Incartus and Bluefin Trustees

    Another pension liberation scam – placed in the hands of Dalriada Trustees by the Pensions Regulator.

    Incartus was placed in the hands of Dalriada Trustees by the Pensions Regulator.  But Dalriada has never reported the scammers to the police as it is not “within their remit” to ensure the scammers are prosecuted.

    None of the Incartus or Bluefin trustees scammers has ever been convicted or jailed.

     

    KJK Investments and G Loans

    £11.9 million worth of transfers were made, with the victims receiving approximately 50% of their pension as a loan and the promise of the rest being invested into a high-interest generating SIPPS. The loans were made from the pensions and therefore the victims have the usual HMRC tax demand letters.  Further to the victims’ misery, the other 50% of the funds was not invested as promised. Most of the funds were swallowed by high commissions paid to the scammers.

    None of the KJK Investments/G Loans scammers has ever been convicted or jailed.

    London Quantum

    Pension Life blog - Scammers are criminals, so why are they not being prosecuted?Another of  Stephen Ward’s many pension scams, this one was courtesy of his bogus pension trustee firm Dorrixo Alliance, his accomplice Gary Barlow at Gerard Associates, and introducers at Viva Costa International. Like Ward´s other scams, London Quantum scam was never set up for the benefit of the victims, but in the interests of Stephen Ward and his team of scammers to earn the maximum amount of commission out of the toxic, illiquid, high-risk investments.

    The London Quantum scam is now in the hands of Dalriada Trustees.

    London Quantum – like Ark, Capita Oak and Fast Pensions – was placed in the hands of Dalriada Trustees by the Pensions Regulator.  But Dalriada has never reported Stephen Ward – or any of the other scammers – to the police as it is not “within their remit” to ensure the scammers are prosecuted.

    Stephen Ward and Gary Barlow have never been convicted or jailed.

    Successful Pensions

    This pension liberation scam dating back to 2013 and 2014, involved around £1m of victims pension funds. Anthony Locke, was sentenced to a five-year jail term and Ray King, 54, who was employed by Lock, was given a three-year jail sentence.

    It is great that these two crooks received jail terms, however, they are relatively “small fry” in comparison to the other serial scammers who are still walking free!  The question remains: why have two minor players such as Locke and King been convicted and jailed while the “big fish” remain free to keep on scamming?

    Salmon Enterprises

    Pension Life Blog - Salmon Enterprises Scheme Pension Scam116 victims were scammed out of their pensions by James Lau of FCA-regulated Wightman Fletcher McCabe.  Victims were assured the loans they were given did not come from their pension funds and would not be taxable by HMRC.  The trustees of the scheme – Peter Bradley and Andrew Meeson (both ex HMRC) of Tudor Capital Management – were jailed for eight years for cheating the Public Revenue.  James Lau is currently under criminal investigation by the Insolvency Service. The victims are awaiting a verdict on whether they will still have to pay the tax penalties.

    James Lau has not yet been convicted or jailed – although he is clearly a wanted man.

    Pension Life blog - Scammers are criminals, so why are they not being prosecuted?Trafalgar Multi-Asset Fund

    This fund, created by XXXX XXXX, loaned most of the £21m invested by hundreds of victims to Dolphin Trust. Dolphin Trust is a UCIS which was illegal to be sold to UK residents. The Trafalgar Multi-Asset fund was suspended back in September 2016 and victims are still waiting to find out if they will ever get their money back.

    This scam was facilitated by STM Fidecs in Gibraltar – one of Europe’s biggest QROPS providers.  The regulator did order Deloittes to carry out an inspection into STM Fidecs’ books, but no action was taken against STM Fidecs for their part in this scam.

    STM Fidecs accepted transfers into the QROPS by UK-resident victims “advised” by XXXX XXXX – even though he was not licensed to give financial advice.  And then XXXX’s clients were 100% invested in XXXX’s own fund.

    XXXX XXXX has not yet been convicted or jailed – although he is clearly under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

    Westminster Pension Scam

    Another of the schemes under investigation by the SFO.  This liberation scam with more than £3 million worth of (now worthless) investments was registered and administered by Stephen Ward.

    Windsor Pensions

    A no-frills pension liberation scam run by Florida-based Steve Pimlott.  This scam has been going on for years and there is no sign of any let up – despite the fact that the regulators and ombudsman are well aware of Pimlott’s modus operandi.  Pimlott doesn’t bother with any attempt to conceal the loans with fancy “loans” or complex mechanisms to try to “distance” the liberation from the pension transfer.  He uses QROPS and a fraudulently-set-up bank account in the Isle of Man (of course!).  HMRC catches many of the victims and charges them 55% tax on the liberated amount.  Pimlott charges around 15% for the liberation.

    Steve Pimlott has not yet been convicted or jailed

    What a sorry state of affairs that out of all the pension schemes I have mentioned here, only one of them has seen the scammers jailed. Serial scammers like Stephen Ward and XXXX XXXX seem to slip the noose of justice again and again.

     

     

  • Ombudsman upholds Capita Oak transfer complaint – sort of

    Ombudsman upholds Capita Oak transfer complaint – sort of

    A victim of the Capita Oak pension scam has had his Pensions Ombudsman’s complaint upheld in part ONLY.  His ceding trustee, JLT Benefits Solutions Limited (JLT), has been ordered to pay compensation but has not been held responsible for his loss.

    When my children were young, I always tried to treat them all equally.  They all had the same bedtime; were taught the same standards of behaviour and manners; were given the same food (and expected to eat it all – even the green bits!); and received the same standard of education.  And surely this is how our society should operate?  Fairly, equally and inclusively.
    But when our noble Pensions Ombudsman finds one negligent ceding pension provider guilty of carelessly handing over a pension fund to a scam and orders that provider to reinstate the fund in full, but then lets another provider off the hook for doing exactly the same thing, you have to ask whether the Ombudsman is doing his job properly.
    Let us compare the two cases:
    1. The ceding provider – the Police Authority – did not check whether it was handing over the member’s pension to a scam
    2. The receiving scheme was an occupational scheme
    3. The occupational scheme’s sponsoring employer did not trade or employ anybody
    4. The member was not employed by the scheme’s sponsoring employer
    5. The assets were unregulated, high-risk, illiquid and speculative and paid substantial commissions to the scammers
    6. The transfer administration was carried out by Stephen Ward
    1. The ceding provider – JLT Benefits Solutions – did not check whether it was handing over the member’s pension to a scam
    2. The receiving scheme was an occupational scheme
    3. The occupational scheme’s sponsoring employer did not trade or employ anybody
    4. The member was not employed by the scheme’s sponsoring employer
    5. The assets were unregulated, high-risk, illiquid and speculative and paid substantial commissions to the scammers
    6. The transfer administration was carried out by Stephen Ward
    A Capita Oak victim complained to the Pensions Ombudsman and his ceding provider was not ordered to reinstate his pension in full.
    Both victims were given £1,000 as compensation for the distress suffered.  In the case of the London Quantum victim, that worked out as 55 pence a day for worrying himself sick about losing his pension; in the case of the Capita Oak victim, that worked out at 39 pence a day for worrying himself sick about losing his pension.
    The biggest difference between the two cases, however, is that in the London Quantum case, the sponsoring employer – London Quantum – did actually exist and was on the Companies House register.  Whereas, the sponsoring employer for Capita Oak was a non-existent company called R. P. Medplant in Cyprus.
    So, let’s take a look at how and why the Pensions Ombudsman failed to uphold the Capita Oak victim’s complaint in full.  And ask ourselves whether our Ombudsman is perhaps as useless as our regulators.
    Mr N complained that JLT failed to undertake adequate due diligence on the Capita Oak Pension Scheme before transferring his pension. However, the ombudsman has ruled that JLT cannot be held responsible for the transfer as Capita Oak was registered with HMRC and they followed the official protocol in the transfer.  But then the London Quantum scheme was also registered with HMRC – so there was no difference.

    This leaves the unanswered question:

    WHO IS TO BLAME??

    The scammers?

    The law?

    The Pensions Regulator?

    The FCA?

    The Pensions Ombudsman?

    HMRC?

    Stephen Ward?

    Many other victims are sitting in the wings waiting for the answer, whilst they struggle with the situation they have been left with: a decimated pension fund and little – if any – chance of recovery.

    Here are the details from the Ombudsman’s determination on Mr N, a victim of the Capita Oak pension scam.

    Ombudsman’s Determination Applicant Mr N Scheme G4S Pension Scheme (Group 4 Section) (the Scheme) Respondents G4S Trustees Limited (the Trustee) JLT Benefits Solutions Limited(JLT) – Outcome
    1. Mr N’s complaint against JLT is partly upheld, but there is a part of the complaint I do not agree with.  To put matters right, for the part that is upheld, JLT should pay Mr N £1,000 for the very significant distress and inconvenience caused.
    2. The complaint against the Trustee is not upheld.
    3. My reasons for reaching this decision are explained in more detail below.
    Complaint summary:
    4. Mr N has complained that the Trustee and JLT failed to undertake adequate due diligence on the Capita Oak Pension Scheme (Capita Oak), before transferring his pension. Had they done so, and alerted him to the risks, he says he would have canceled the transfer.
    Background information, including submissions from the parties:
    5. In November 2012, Mr N posted a question about financial matters on a website. He was aged 47 and employed.
    6. On 28 November 2012, Mr N was contacted by a business named JP Sterling Associates (JP Sterling), which claimed to be regulated. He was informed that he would be able to transfer his pension without an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) through a legal loophole, avoiding the need to pay any commission. It would charge £1,500 for this service.
    7. JP Sterling promoted Capita Oak to Mr N and said that his pension would be invested in store pods. This would provide a minimum return of 8% a year. Mr N received promotional literature on the investment.
    8. On the basis of what JP Sterling had told him, Mr N agreed to transfer his pension.
    9. On 3 December 2012, Mr N requested a transfer quotation.
    10. On 18 December 2012, JLT, the Scheme administrator, issued a transfer pack. This included the following statement:
    “We would particularly like to recommend that you take caution if you have received a website promotion, cold – call or advert encouraging you to transfer your benefits in order to access a cash payment or loan. Legislation states that cash from pensions
    cannot be accessed before you reach age 55, and any plans that claim to provide you with a loan or cash sum from your pension before that date should be avoided. Such plans may result in you paying substantial tax charges and receiving a lower benefit in retirement. It is recommended that you take financial advice before making a decision on transferring.”
    11. On 9 January 2013, Mr N signed the Transfer Request and Discharge document, provided by JLT, instructing his benefits be transferred to Capita Oak.
    12. On 30 January 2013, JLT received the completed Transfer Request and Discharge document from Capita Oak. This included the completed Receiving Scheme Warranty, Scheme details and confirmation of HMRC registration, including Capita Oak’s Pension Scheme Tax Reference (PSTR).
    13. On the same date, JLT checked the HMRC register to establish the current status of the Capita Oak scheme, which showed that it was registered. A screen print of this was taken and added to the file.
    14. On 1 February 2013, Mr N called JLT and advised it that he had been trying to contact Capita Oak but had been unable to get through to them. JLT confirmed that it had received correspondence from Capita Oak on 30 January 2013 and that it would
    be reviewed on 13 February 2013.
    15. On 6 February 2013, JLT carried out its due diligence checks on Capita Oak. This checklist is referred to as a Trustbusting form. The checks included establishing the type of scheme Capita Oak was, and checking its scheme summary page from Pension Schemes Online, a Government website, to confirm its status.
    16. Part 3 is titled ‘Transfers to Occupational Pension Schemes’. This requires that the employer be checked on Companies House and that a screen print be taken. This point on the checklist was initialled, indicating that it was checked.
    17. Part 4 goes on to state: “If employer and /or Trustees not found on websites: Contact HMRC and obtain written confirmation that the scheme is tax approved, using 119 [emphasis in original].  Ensure copy of Warranty Form is enclosed. This check is in addition to obtaining the PSTR approval letter/screen print of scheme summary page which will have been obtained in step 1 of this checklist.
    Once written confirmation has been received from HMRC refer to Business Risk [emphasis in original] for final decision.”
    18. On 14 February 2013, The Pensions Regulator (TPR) issued an announcement (the announcement) highlighting the risks to individuals and pension schemes of pension liberation. In making the announcement, it also issued a warning leaflet aimed at members. JLT has confirmed that this document was added to its intranet page the following day.
    19. On 19 February 2013, JLT wrote to Capita Oak confirming that the transfer value would be paid within the next three working days.
    20. On 20 February 2013, JLT transferred the funds.
    21. On 21 February 2013, Mr N called JLT saying he was unable to contact Capita Oak. JLT referred him to the Capita Oak website for further information.
    22. On the same day, JLT wrote to Mr N to confirm that the transfer value of £151,277.91 had been transferred to Capita Oak.
    23. On 22 February 2013, Mr N called JLT raising “serious concerns” about Capita Oak, stating that the correspondence appeared to have been “written by a child” and he could not locate information about it on the internet. He subsequently emailed at
    9.45am requesting the transfer be put on hold until further checks were undertaken on Capita Oak. He stated: “I have very real concerns about CapitaOak [sic] as I have not been able to trace them through any website or listing anywhere. I did a check for
    them with the FSA and it came up blank. I was dealing with a company called JP Sterling who appear to be a very reputable investment broker, however I don’t want to transfer to a company that I have no knowledge of or can’t contact ever.”
    24. JLT responded to the email at 10:43 am by calling Mr N. It provided him with alternative contact details for Capita Oak.
    25. Mr N followed the call up with an email at 10:58am, stating he did not wish to proceed with the transfer unless “you”, being JLT, “find something to change my mind completely”.
    26. At 12.15pm, JLT called Mr N to explain that the transfer had already been processed. JLT informed Mr N that due diligence had been undertaken on Capita Oak and it had passed all the transfer checks. Mr N confirmed he had spoken to Capita Oak and he was due to receive full information on the scheme in the near future.
    http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130402174913/http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/pension-liberation-
    fraud.aspx
    27. On 26 February 2013, Imperial Trustee Services Ltd, as trustee for the Capita Oak scheme, wrote to Mr N to acknowledge that his application had been processed.
    28. On the same day, JLT called Mr N to query the position of Capita Oak. The call note records that: “The member stated that as far as he was concerned the transfer had gone through and there is no further action from JLT unless he contacted us further.”
    29. Mr N subsequently raised a complaint about the transfer. It is unclear how that progressed, but it was not resolved, and the matter was accepted by this Office for investigation.
    Adjudicator’s Opinion
    30. Mr N’s complaint was considered by one of the Pensions Ombudsman Adjudicators who concluded that further action was required by JLT, but none was required by the Trustee.
    31. The Adjudicator’s findings are summarised briefly below:
    • The Adjudicator acknowledged that at the time JLT undertook the due diligence on Capita Oak, the Regulator’s announcement had not been made and therefore was during a period of lower industry standards.
    • However, JLT’s internal processes were more stringent than the industry standards of the time, and the transfer should be viewed in the context of those processes when deciding whether its actions were correct.
    • The Adjudicator considered that JLT’s process in relation to checking the legitimacy of Capita Oak was not accurately followed. He highlighted that there was no apparent way JLT could have made a check of the sponsoring employer at Companies House, as the name of the sponsoring employer had not been communicated to it in the transfer paperwork; and, as a Cypriot company, it would
    not have been registered at Companies House anyway.
    • In the absence of a record at Companies House, the Adjudicator took the view that, when following the guidance on the Trustbusting checklist, it was necessary for JLT to have contacted HMRC to obtain written confirmation that Capita Oak was tax approved, and to then refer the matter to “Business Risk for final decision.”
    • JLT had highlighted that a HMRC screen print had been taken showing Capita Oak’s status, but the Adjudicator concluded that despite that, the guidance still required an extra step to be taken, by contacting HMRC in writing, and it had not been.
    •The Adjudicator concluded this was maladministration and went on to consider whether, but for that maladministration, would JLT have refused the transfer or provided Mr N with further warnings which might have caused him to cancel it.
    • The Adjudicator noted that there was likely to have been a delay caused by this additional step, and said that in some instances HMRC might issue a letter stating that it was unable to confirm the current status of the scheme enquired about.  Such a letter might have resulted in a different outcome. However, the Adjudicator’s understanding was that concerns over Capita Oak did not arise until sometime after March 2013, and so there was no reason to think that had HMRC been contacted, JLT would have received any warning letter or reason for concern. The outcome of the due diligence would have been no different.
    • Mr N did request, within 48 of the transfer being completed, that it be canceled.  The question was therefore whether, had JLT taken longer to process the transfer, Mr N would have canceled the transfer in time. Was it JLT’s fault that he was given insufficient time to cancel his instruction? The Adjudicator concluded that this was not sufficient in terms of causation and foreseeability to make JLT legally liable for the losses Mr N had suffered. JLT was following Mr N’s instruction to transfer and, in the absence of any grounds to refuse it, was required by legislation to do so.
    • The Adjudicator considered that JLT had provided Mr N with warnings about website promotions and cold – calls, both features of his transfer , in excess of what was typical industry practice at the time . It had also recommended he seek advice from an IFA and Mr N had still gone ahead with the transfer despite being aware that it apparently used a “legal loophole” to avoid IFAs.
    • Mr N had spoken with JLT prior to the transfer, but the Adjudicator considered that from Mr N’s description of the call, it had not acted in error when discussing the transfer.
    • Following the transfer, on 22 February 2013, Mr N had been given inconsistent information giving rise to the expectation that the transfer could be cancelled. However, by this point the transfer had completed and there was no way to reverse it. Whilst this information was incorrect, it had not led to Mr N’s financial loss.
    • The Adjudicator could see no fault on the part of the Trustee.
    • For JLT’s procedural failure, in failing to contact HMRC, and for the inconsistent information, provided after the transfer had completed, the Adjudicator recommended JLT pay Mr N £1,000.
    32. Neither Mr N nor JLT accepted the Adjudicator’s Opinion and the complaint was passed to me to consider. Both parties provided
    further comments which do not change the outcome. I agree with the Adjudicator’s Opinion and I will therefore only respond to the key points for completeness.
    Ombudsman’s decision
    33. Mr N has repeated the content of a series of conversations he had with JLT over the course of February 2013, highlighting that he asked for the transfer to be stopped as he was concerned with the quality of Capita Oak’s communication. He says he was told by JLT that Capita Oak was legitimate and he was reassured by this. He points to the fact that the Adjudicator has shown that JLT failed to undertake the correct checks before transferring, and he says this is negligence, not simply maladministration.
    34. I have reviewed the call notes between Mr N and JLT. There was a call prior to the funds being transferred, however Mr N did not request the transfer be put on hold or rescind the request at that point.  The note shows that JLT informed him that correspondence had been received and it would be progressing the transfer approximately two weeks later. This was prior to the due diligence being carried out. Mr N has not suggested that this call note misrepresents the conversation, and on the basis of the note I see no reason for JLT to have halted the process.
    35. Mr N did request, on 22 February 2013, that the transfer be put on hold. However, by this time the transfer had already completed and could not be reversed by JLT. JLT gave Mr N the false expectation that the transfer could be stopped, but otherwise any reassurance it provided about Capita Oak was just relaying the fact that Capita Oak had passed the due diligence checks.
    36. Having reviewed JLT’s due diligence process, I agree with the Adjudicator that it cannot have been followed in its entirety. In the absence of a Companies House record for the employer, JLT should have to written to HMRC to enquire about Capita Oak and this did not happen. Subsequently, the transfer should also have been scrutinised by Business Risk.
    37. However, despite this failure to follow its internal process, at the time HMRC had not flagged any concerns regarding Capita Oak, and so there would have been no reason for JLT to legitimately decline the transfer. The additional process may have delayed the transfer, and this might, fortuitously, have given Mr N the opportunity to cancel the transfer by extending the time Mr N had to think about his transfer.
    38. However, as Mr N had the opportunity to cancel the transfer at any time between 9 January and 20 February 2013, the date the transfer was made, it was not reasonably foreseeable by JLT that Mr N would try to do so on 22 February. Also, had JLT taken the extra step of contacting HMRC, the positive confirmation, which would most likely have been received at that time, is likely to have
    led Mr N to continue rather than cancel the transfer. I do not find that Mr N has a claim for negligence because JLT did not cause the loss. It was transferring to a scheme that, at the time, was properly registered and Mr N had exercised his statutory right to transfer by signing the statutory discharge form.
    40. Mr N argues that had he not been reassured by JLT that Capita Oak was genuine, then he would have complained earlier. But there was no reason for JLT to have suggested there were concerns with Capita Oak, and the same would have been true if it had contacted HMRC.
    41. I note that during a conversation with JLT on 26 February 2013, following the transfer, Mr N confirmed that he was in contact with “the broker” and he did not expect further action from JLT at that time. It was not until sometime later that Mr N raised a
    complaint with JLT. This implies that in February 2013, or shortly thereafter, Mr N was reassured by the broker, or Capita Oak, as to its legitimacy, otherwise he would have complained at that time. Therefore, even if he had been given the opportunity to place the transfer on hold or cancel it, ultimately the broker would more likely than not have reassured Mr N of the security of the transfer and it would have gone ahead despite his reservations.
    42. I have great sympathy with the position in which Mr N finds himself. It may be that in the long run some of the value of his pension is recovered, but that is uncertain. This was a significant portion of Mr N’s pension provision and I have no doubt that this matter is extremely distressing for him. However, JLT did recommend he seek independent financial advice and warn him of the risks of pension cold calls. Mr N was recommended the transfer by JP Sterling on the basis that it circumvented the need for an independent financial adviser. In these circumstances, I cannot attribute Mr N’s loss to JLT because of a procedural oversight which would not have flagged any concerns over the transfer, particularly where that procedure already exceeded the standards at the time.
    43. JLT has disputed the level of distress and inconvenience award recommended by the Adjudicator, arguing that these circumstances are different from those of the case the Adjudicator had highlighted. In particular, JLT point to the fact that it provided relevant warnings to Mr N; but, in PO-10365, the scheme provided no warnings to the transferring member. I acknowledge the difference JLT has highlighted, but the point remains that it did not properly follow its established process when carrying out Mr N’s transfer. Whilst it cannot be held responsible for his loss, it is very distressing for Mr N to know that steps were missed.
    44.  Additionally, JLT provided Mr N with the false understanding that the transfer could be put on hold, when this was not possible. In a typical complaint involving an administrative error, I would not normally award £1,000.  However, there was more than one administrative error and the risks were high. I would have expected JLT to have exercised more care and accuracy in the way the transfer was carried out and the information conveyed to the member.
    45. Therefore, I uphold Mr N’s complaint against JLT in part.
    Directions
    46.  Within 21 days of the date of this Determination, JLT shall pay £1,000 to Mr N for the very significant distress he has suffered.
    Anthony Arter
    Pension Ombudsman
  • Stephen Ward – The Death of Trust

    Stephen Ward – The Death of Trust

    Pension Life Blog - Stephen Ward - The Death of Trust - Premier Pension solutions - Ward - London Quantum - Stephen WardStephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions SL and Premier Pension Transfers Ltd and Dorrixo Alliance Ltd has now been banned from acting as a pension trustee by the Pensions Regulator.

    Ward’s sidekick Anthony Salih – based at the notorious 31 Memorial Road, Worsley address – has been similarly banned.  The ban has been in relation to the London Quantum pension scam operated by the pair in 2014/15.

    London Quantum Pension ScamTPR has been neither coy nor shy in its published determination against Ward and Salih – and has openly called the London Quantum pension scheme, and the risky investments which Ward made, a “scam”.

    But to any reasonable person’s mind, tPR’s determination in relation to Ward and London Quantum raises more questions than it answers.  In fact, I would go even further and say that HMRC’s and tPR’s incompetence – as well as Dalriada Trustees‘ own failings – should be examined in parallel with Ward’s multiple frauds.

    Because, make no mistake, London Quantum was only one of many.

    It all started long before the Ark Pensions scam.  Ward set out his stall transferring pensions to New Zealand and liberating 100% “tax free”.  He boasted in the local Costa Blanca press that he had “helped” thousands of clients liberate their pensions (legally).  Of course, this may have been free of tax in New Zealand, but when the Spanish tax authorities catch up with these clients, there will be a very expensive disaster.

    It is extremely worrying that IVCM – a “phoenix” of the Brooklands disaster – is also offering the same New Zealand liberation facility today.  It always worries me when firms fail to learn the lessons of past scams and expose unsuspecting victims to the same catastrophes that past scammers orchestrated.  Add to this the fact that IVCM is regulated out of Gibraltar – the jurisdiction of choice for scammers such as XXXX XXXX and STM Fidecs – and I think it is well worth giving IVCM a very wide berth.

    Prior to 2010, Ward was a tied agent of Inter Alliance – a company based in Cyprus which had an insurance license.  For Inter Alliance in Cyprus, Ward successfully created the illusion that this gave his company Premier Pension Solutions some sort of license.  But, in reality, it did not – as the Cyprus license was only for Inter Alliance and not for any other entity.  Plus tied agents were (and still are) illegal in Spain.

    As a sideline, Ward was flogging EEA Life Settlements as he had discovered the delights of making huge commissions out of dodgy, risky, illiquid investments to his unsuspecting victims.  In 2010, Ward was working closely with Concept Trustees in Guernsey – run by Roger Berry.  Initially happy to see Concept Trustees’ QROPS members have 100% of their pensions invested by Ward in EEA, Berry eventually realised that Ward’s firm was not regulated as it had been dumped by Inter Alliance.  Of course, even before it had been dumped, Premier Pension Solutions wasn’t regulated anyway.  But Concept Trustees was too stupid to realise that.

    Concept then wrote to all the members who were clients of Ward’s Premier Pension Solutions and warned them that Ward’s firm was neither regulated nor had any professional indemnity insurance cover.  Berry claimed he would not be accepting any further investment instructions from Ward, but this was basically just a load of hot air (aka lying) as he continued to accept investment instructions into EEA by Ward.

    In September 2010, Premier Pension Solutions was appointed as a tied agent of AES International – a firm based in London and Dubai.  The agency agreement covered PPS for investment and insurance business – but not pension transfer business.  Ward’s PPS letterheaded paper claimed that it was a “partner” of AES and that it was regulated by the DGS (Spanish insurance regulator) and CNMV (Spanish investment regulator).  PPS also became a member of FEIFA – the Federation of European Independent Financial Advisers (although he was later dumped by them).  You can understand why so many victims thought that PPS was a bona fide advisory firm.

    Pension Life Blog - Stephen Ward - The Death of Trust - Premier Pension solutions - Ward - London Quantum - Stephen WardThen came the first of Ward’s major pension scams: Ark.  It is worth looking at the history of Ark because this sets the scene for how nearly 500 victims came to lose their pensions and face tax liabilities – as well as the dozens of further scams operated by Ward (including London Quantum).

    A famous footballer and his mate – a football club owner – bought a plot of land in Larnaca in Cyprus with a view to turning it into a golf resort.  They paid £1.1 million for the property, but then realised it wasn’t big enough for a whole golf course (neither of them was bright enough to be able to count up to 18) and so they tried to find some other investors.  The chumps they tried to con into buying more land adjacent to the original plot either couldn’t come up with the money or were frightened off such a high-risk, illiquid investment.

    So the sporty pair went to see the footballer’s accountant – Andrew Isles of Isles and Storer (now owned by LB Group).  Isles soothed the sporty pair’s worries by telling them that securing more investors was simple: just start a pension fund!  He introduced them to what he called “two leading pension experts”: Craig Tweedley and Stephen Ward.  Tweedley was already operating the KJK Investments/G Loans pension liberation scam (later to be placed in the hands of Dalriada Trustees by the Pensions Regulator) and Ward was a highly-qualified pensions expert, examiner and author.

    The rest is history as nearly 500 victims lost their pensions to the Ark scam.  But the sporty pair did very nicely – they sold the land in Cyprus to the Ark scheme for £4 million and pocketed the profit.  The footballer tried to hide the money in Dubai but got caught and turned Queens Evidence.  He and the other original investor (the football club owner) fell out and they ended up in court against each other – with the footballer triumphing.  Andrew Isles also did very nicely as he sold introductions to a number of his clients and earned fat commissions in doing so.

    As Ark unfolded – between mid 2010 and mid 2011 – Ward initially acted as an introducer.  There were various introducers – many recruited by Ward when he ran a series of seminars in various parts of the UK.  But Ward himself was the biggest introducer – accounting for more than a third of the whole £27 million fund and earning approaching three quarters of a million pounds in fees (the Pensions Regulator’s report of £350k was way off the mark).

    Ward and his sidekick – bent lawyer Alan Fowler of Stevens and Bolton Solicitors – acted as the controlling minds behind Ark.  The scheme documentation and the “loan” contracts were drawn up and explained by Ward and Fowler.  Of the 5% commission charged by Craig Tweedley, Ward got at least 2% plus a transfer fee.  But Ward had his eye on a much bigger proportion of the fees.  Towards the end of the life of Ark, Ward was preparing to take Ark over from Tweedley – along with an associate of his: Peter Moat (another pension crook who went on to operate the Fast Pensions scam – now also in the hands of Dalriada Trustees).  In a way, it was a shame that didn’t happen, as Tweedley did at least try to help the Ark victims, whereas Ward never lifted a finger.  In fact, he simply told the Ark victims to throw the tax demands away as “HMRC would never pursue them”.

    In February 2011, HMRC met with Tweedley and Ward to discuss the “loans” – so HMRC knew perfectly well that Ward was the main brain behind the scam.  It is, therefore, astonishing that they did nothing to stop him operating so many further pension scams.

    Ark came to a shuddering halt on 31st May 2011, when tPR appointed Dalriada Trustees and the scheme was suspended.  Dalriada went up to Yorkshire to confront Crag Tweedley and relieve him of all the evidence and files relating to the scam.  Tweedley told Dalriada that all the records were held down at Ward’s Manchester office at 31, Memorial Road and he drove down to collect them from Anthony Salih.  He arrived to find Salih removing all the Premier Pension Solutions fee agreements on the instructions of Ward (he managed to shred most of them – but did missed a few which I now have).

    Pension Life Blog - Stephen Ward - The Death of Trust - Premier Pension solutions - Ward - London Quantum - Stephen WardAfter Ark, Ward went on to run the Evergreen Retirement Benefits QROPS scam with accompanying 50% “loans” and a further 300 victims lost £10 million worth of pensions.  HMRC removed Evergreen from the QROPS list when they realised it was a liberation scam and Ward fell back on two more UK-based, bogus occupational schemes: Southlands and Headforte.  Plus, he registered a number of new schemes – including Capita Oak.

    The Capita Oak scheme was another bogus occupational scheme registered by Ward with a fictitious sponsoring employer: RP Medplant (Cyprus).  There is, however, a firm called RP Med Plant in Cyprus.  The Capita Oak trust deed was written by Ward’s bent lawyer Alan Fowler.  Ward took responsibility for the transfer administration – transferring valuable personal and final salary occupational pensions into this scam – in the full knowledge that he was condemning hundreds of victims to certain financial ruin and poverty in retirement.  Capita Oak is now also in the hands of Dalriada Trustees.

    Other pension scams that Ward was operating – in addition to Southlands and Headforte – from 2012 onwards included Feldspar, Hammerley, Meribel,  Halkin, Randwick, Bollington Wood and Westminster.  And, of course, Dorrixo Alliance which was the trustee for many of these scams.  Capita Oak and Westminster are both under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

    Pension Life Blog - Stephen Ward - The Death of Trust - Premier Pension solutions - Ward - London Quantum - Stephen Ward
    How much more evidence do they need?

    In May 2014, HMRC was given evidence of all of Ward’s various scams – including Dorrixo Alliance.  They were also given detailed testimony by me and a number of victims of what Ward had been up to in the pension liberation fraud industry since Ark.  It would have been very easy for HMRC to look up to see what other pension schemes Dorrixo was trustee to.  Had they done this, they would have seen that Dorrixo was the trustee for the London Quantum scheme.  If HMRC had taken any action, they could have prevented Mr. N – a serving police officer – and 96 other victims from losing their pensions to Ward and his various dodgy, inappropriate investments (including loans to Dolphin Trust).

    If we add to the above catalogue of scams the Continental Wealth Management scam – 1,000 victims facing the loss of £100 million worth of life savings – Ward has been responsible for the destruction of thousands of people’s pensions this past eight years.  Plus several suicides and deaths from stress-related medical conditions.

    SERIOUS QUESTIONS ARISING FROM THE PENSIONS REGULATOR’S DETERMINATION RE:

    Mr Stephen Alexander Ward – The Pensions Regulator case ref: C46205159

    Ward was a director of Dorrixo from 13 October 2011 to 28 April 2015. A company called Quantum Investment Management Solutions LLP (“QIMS”) has at all material times been the sole sponsoring employer of the Scheme. Dorrixo became the sole trustee of the Scheme on 19 April 2014. Dorrixo is also recorded as being the Scheme administrator.

    HMRC AND TPR WERE GIVEN EVIDENCE OF WARD’S COMPANY, DORRIXO, IN MAY 2014.  THEY WERE ALSO GIVEN EVIDENCE OF A LARGE NUMBER OF SCAMS WARD OPERATED AFTER ARK – ALL INVOLVING LIBERATION FRAUD.  WHY WASN’T ACTION TAKEN TO PREVENT LONDON QUANTUM?  ALL 97 VICTIMS – INCLUDING A SERVING POLICE OFFICER – COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED.

    On 18 June 2015 the Regulator appointed Dalriada Trustees Limited (“Dalriada”) as an independent trustee to the Scheme, with exclusive powers.

    HAS ONE SINGLE PENNY EVER BEEN RETURNED TO ANY OF THE PENSION SCAMS PLACED IN THE HANDS OF DALRIADA TRUSTEES?  THERE ARE DOZENS OF THEM, AND FEW – IF ANY – OTHER INDEPENDENT TRUSTEES ARE EVER APPOINTED BY TPR.  BUT THERE SEEMS TO BE NO RECORD OF ONE SINGLE MEMBER EVER GETTING ANY RETURN FROM ANY OF THE SCHEMES IN THE PAST EIGHT YEARS – DESPITE THE MANY MILLIONS DALRIADA HAVE PAID THEMSELVES FROM THESE SCHEMES.

    Pension Life Blog - Stephen Ward - The Death of Trust - Premier Pension solutions - Ward - London Quantum - Stephen WardFollowing its appointment Dalriada discovered that there were approximately 609 files on record relating to potential new members, each at various stages of progression towards becoming a new member.

    AS THIS EVIDENCES THAT THIS SCAM COULD EASILY HAVE DWARFED ARK IN A VERY SHORT SPACE OF TIME, DON’T HMRC AND TPR RECOGNISE THAT THEIR LAZINESS AND NEGLIGENCE NEED TO BE ADDRESSED?  THEY LEARNED NOTHING FROM ARK – AND WHILE THERE ARE VALID CRITICISMS OF WARD FOR HAVING LEARNED NOTHING, HE IS JUST A COMMON SPIV WHILE HMRC AND TPR ARE SUPPOSED TO BE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS WITH A RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC.  THE SCALE OF THIS SCAM SHOWS THESE TWO ORGANISATIONS ARE NOTHING BUT HOPELESSLY INEPT AND AMATEURISH IN THEIR APPROACH TO DILIGENCE AND PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY.

    The Scheme was promoted to potential new members by introducers. These included the following entities: GoBMV; Baird Dunbar; What Partnership; the Resort Group PLC; Friendly Investments; Premier Mark Consultants and Quantum Wealth Management Solutions Limited.

    THE DANGERS OF THE SCOURGE OF “INTRODUCERS” SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEARNED FROM THE ARK SCAM IN 2011.  WARD RECRUITED DOZENS OF THEM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.  AND YET NONE OF THEM HAS EVER BEEN BROUGHT TO JUSTICE FOR THEIR PART IN ARK, AND HAVE GONE ON TO OPERATE AS INTRODUCERS AND EVEN HOLD KEY CENTRAL ROLES IN LATER SCAMS.  THIS INCLUDES FRIENDLY INVESTMENTS AND JULIAN HANSON – WHOSE SCHEMES ARE NOW ALSO IN THE HANDS OF DALRIADA TRUSTEES.

    Gerard was responsible for producing template risk letters, member application forms, pro forma declarations stating that the person signing them was a self-certified sophisticated investor, member booklets and the statement of investment principles (of which there were four versions). Gerard sent these documents to members once they had been introduced to the Scheme by an introducer.

    GERARD ASSOCIATES, RUN BY GARY BARLOW, HAD ACTED AS AN INTRODUCER TO WARD IN THE ARK SCAM.  AND YET HE WAS LEFT FREE TO OPERATE IN THE SAME CAPACITY IN THE LONDON QUANTUM SCAM – AND EVEN TAKE ON A MORE CENTRAL ROLE.  GERARD ASSOCIATES WAS AT THE TIME AN FCA-REGULATED FIRM – AND REMAINS SO TO THIS DAY.  THE FCA HAS TAKEN NO ACTION TO REMOVE THIS FIRM OR TAKE ANY ACTION AGAINST GARY BARLOW.

    GERARD ASSOCIATES’ GARY BARLOW WAS PAID £253,000 FROM THE LONDON QUANTUM SCHEME FOR DEFRAUDING VICTIMS INTO SIGNING AGREEMENTS THAT THEY WERE “SOPHISTICATED” INVESTORS.  SO WHY HASN’T BARLOW BEEN PROSECUTED AND JAILED – AND MADE TO PAY THIS MONEY BACK TO THE VICTIMS?

    A material number of the new members had a low or medium appetite for investment risk and, in any event, were unaware that the Scheme’s investments were high-risk investments. The Panel was troubled by the apparent disconnect between members’ appetite for risk and the high risk nature of the investments made by Dorrixo. Mr Ward accepted that the Scheme’s investments were high risk, but claimed this was made clear to new members in the Member Booklet.

    I DON’T KNOW WHAT SORT OF DRUNKEN DUMMIES MADE UP TPR’S “PANEL”, BUT DID THEY SERIOUSLY THINK THAT ANY PENSION FUNDS SHOULD EVER INVEST IN HIGH-RISK CRAP?  INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS’ APPETITE FOR INVESTMENT RISK IS IRRELEVANT – THIS WAS A PENSION FUND, NOT A CASINO.

    The case against Ward was based on failures of competence and capability, and also a lack of honesty and integrity as well as Ward’s involvement with “pension liberation” as an introducer of members to the “Ark” schemes.

    BUT TPR AND HMRC KNEW ALL ABOUT THIS BACK IN 2010 AND 2011.  WHY DID THEY DO NOTHING TO PREVENT WARD FROM SCAMMING MORE VICTIMS OUT OF MORE MILLIONS OF POUNDS.  THEY STOOD BACK AND WATCHED – DESPITE HAVING HARD EVIDENCE THAT HE WAS STILL UP TO HIS CRIMINAL MISCHIEF.

    Mr Ward did not dispute that a company of his (Premier Pensions Solutions SL) was involved in introducing members to the Ark Schemes, but states that the relevant activity pre-dated any finding by the courts of pensions liberation and that Mr Ward had no knowledge that the schemes were being used for such activity.

    BUT HMRC, TPR AND DALRIADA ALL KNOW THIS ISN’T TRUE.  THEY HAVE ALL SEEN EVIDENCE THAT WARD AND HIS BENT LAWYER ALAN FOWLER ACTUALLY PRODUCED THE “LOAN” (MPVA) DOCUMENTATION AND EXPLAINED THE LOANS IN SOME CONSIDERABLE DETAIL TO THE VICTIMS.  THE MPVA CONTRACTS WERE DRAWN UP BY FOWLER.  IS IT REALLY CREDIBLE THAT NEITHER HMRC NOR TPR WOULD HAVE OBJECTED TO THIS STATEMENT?

    The Panel did not consider there was sufficient evidence of Ward having actual knowledge of, or turning a blind eye to, the illegal nature of the activity of the Ark Schemes when carrying out his role as introducer before.

    SERIOUSLY?  I HAVE GIVEN EVIDENCE OF THIS TO BOTH HMRC AND TPR ON MANY OCCASIONS.  THIS HAS BEEN DISCUSSED AT MEETINGS WITH DALRIADA TRUSTEES ON MANY OCCASIONS.  EVIDENCE OF THIS HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE SERIOUS FRAUD OFFICE ON MANY OCCASIONS BY VARIOUS VICTIMS AND ME.  WHAT FURTHER EVIDENCE DID THE PANEL WANT?  EVERY ARK MEMBER’S FILE WAS FULL OF SUCH EVIDENCE.  EITHER TPR IS LYING OR IT IS INCOMPETENT.  OR BOTH.

    The Case Team also relied on certain alleged failures in relation to other pension schemes (called Headforte and Halkin), of which Mr Ward was a trustee. These are denied by him (e.g. an allegation of failure to appoint an auditor to those schemes) and the Panel did not consider it necessary to make findings in respect of them.

    SO WHAT ACTION HAS TPR TAKEN IN RELATION TO HEADFORTE AND HALKIN?  BOTH WERE BEING USED FOR PENSION LIBERATION FRAUD BY WARD – AND YET THE VICTIMS PROBABLY STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THEIR MONEY.  IT IS ABSOLUTELY ASTONISHING THAT NO ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN IN RELATION TO THESE TWO SCHEMES, PLUS ALL THE OTHERS WARD HAS BEEN OPERATING OVER THE YEARS.

    Stephen Alexander Ward (date of birth 11 July 1955) is hereby prohibited from being a trustee of trust schemes in general. This order has the effect of removing the above-named individual from all or any schemes of which he is a trustee. By section 6 of the Pensions Act 1995, any person who purports to act as a trustee of a trust scheme whilst prohibited under section 3 is guilty of an offence and liable (a) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, and (b) on conviction on indictment to a fine or imprisonment or both.

    Pension Life Blog - Stephen Ward - The Death of Trust - Premier Pension solutions - Ward - London Quantum - Stephen WardSO, WARD CAN STILL OPERATE AS A PENSIONS ADMINISTRATOR?  CAN STILL DO PENSION TRANSFERS?  HE IS BASICALLY FREE TO CARRY ON AS BEFORE.  THIS MAKES HMRC AND TPR COMPLICIT IN WARD’S MANY CRIMES.

    THIS IS NOT JUST THE DEATH OF TRUST, BUT OF ANY CONFIDENCE IN THE GOVERNMENT, REGULATORS AND CRIME PREVENTION AGENCIES TO PREVENT OR DEAL WITH PENSION SCAMS AND SCAMMERS.

     

     

  • Tackling Caravan Crime – Chancellor Philip Hammond

    Tackling Caravan Crime – Chancellor Philip Hammond

    Tackling Caravan Crime – Chancellor Philip Hammond.  Victims of pension fraud in scams such as Ark, Capita Oak, Westminster, London Quantum, Friendly Pensions and Salmon Enterprises – will not be surprised to hear that even the Crown Prosecution Service acknowledges that the fraudsters have defeated the system.  Alison Saunders, head of the CPS, has stated publicly that the British justice system can’t cope.  She is stepping down and is clearly disheartened by Britain’s failure to tackle crime – especially fraud.  She has vented her frustration in an interview:

    While fraud has become the most commonly reported crime in England and Wales, with 1.7 million offenses a year, only one in 200 victims ever sees the perpetrator brought to justice. Saunders admitted that many cases were simply being ignored “because it takes time and a skilled investigator”.

    But look hard enough, and you will see how tackling crime can be done successfully.  As someone who constantly writes about the failure of our police and courts to bring criminals to justice, I was surprised to hear of a spectacular success story in leafy Surrey recently.

    Mr. and Mrs. Shore of Thorpe, in Surrey, were successfully prosecuted and jailed for proceeds of crime.  Residing in Runnymede Borough Council – presided over by Chancellor Phillip Hammond – this dastardly pair (in their sixties) were both sent down for a heinous crime under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“POCA”).

    After many years of detailed investigation, the successful prosecution will send out a resounding warning to all such criminals and will no doubt discourage others from profiting from the same hideous crimes.  And the crime was…….?

    Housing homeless families in caravans without planning consent. 

    Let that sink in for a moment – vulnerable people with young children who had a choice between living on the streets or living in a caravan.  And this crime was committed in Runnymede Borough where there was insufficient housing for the many poor families who could not afford private accommodation and had not been offered council homes.

    This spectacular success story on the part of Hammond, Runnymede Borough Council and the CPS has left the good citizens of Surrey relieved that these dangerous caravan owners are now behind bars and dozens of homeless families are now living on the streets.  Job done; justice served; well done Cutty Sark!

    Hailing from Surrey myself, I am pleased that the county will now be a safer place.  The successful prosecution was in respect of 14 breaches of six enforcement notices issued since 1999 by Runnymede Borough Council, following a seven-day trial at Guildford Crown Court.  The jury heard how the farm owners had not only stationed the caravans on their own land, but had also failed to demolish a shower room.  Unbelievable!

    Hammond must be strutting the halls of Westminster bursting with pride and patrolling the fields of Runnymede with a sense of upholding the social and civil justice with which King John would have been delighted.  In the House of Commons bar, Chancellor Hammond is probably boasting that there is a reason why he is named after a large organ.  In fact, after his spectacular success with the Shores’ caravans, he will probably go down in history as “Caravan Willy” for presiding over such a coup.

    I am sure that the many thousands of people who have lost millions of pounds’ worth of life savings to scammers such as Stephen Ward, Julian Hanson, George Frost, XXXX XXXX, Phillip Nunn, Patrick McCreesh, Stuart Chapman-Clarke, David Vilka, David Austin, Darren Kirby, Dean Stogsdill, Anthony Downs and James Lau will now understand why the CPS couldn’t dedicate any resources to prosecuting them.  And they will, no doubt, be glad that the priority of the judiciary was removing unauthorised caravans in Surrey.

    As in most of my blogs, there is an important postscript: Caravan Willy is a keen property owner and is reported to be worth over £9 million.  The Shores’ land has now been confiscated by Runnymede Borough Council.  And it is worth at least £27 million once planning permission for a housing estate is granted.  I wonder who will be lucky enough to scoop that one up?………

     

     

  • The wheels of the law don´t seem to turn at all

    The wheels of the law don´t seem to turn at all

    Pension Life Blog - Where the wheels of the law don´t seem to turn at all - Friendly Pensions - David AustinThis week Henry Tapper wrote a blog entitled, “The wheels of the law turn (too) slowly”.  He exposes the fact that when it comes to financial crime the justice system in place just isn´t enough.  I think he was being generous with his title.  The wheels of the law don’t just turn slowly – they just don’t turn at all. Friendly Pensions has been in the news this week.

    In the case of Friendly Pensions, we know ringleader David Austin is guilty of setting up 11 fake schemes, with toxic investments including a truffle farm. We know that he and his partners in crime, Susan Dalton, Alan Barratt and Julian Hanson (also connected to the Ark Scam), are guilty of scamming 245 pension savers out of £13.7 million. We knew all of this back in January 2018, yet no arrests have been made!

    The FCA has, however, just yesterday, managed to enforce the following:

    “David Austin, 52, has been banned from serving as a pension trustee and disqualified from working as a company director for 12 years. His business partners Susan Dalton, Alan Barratt, and Julian Hanson have also been barred from trustee roles.

    David Austin’s daughter, 25-year-old Camilla, has been banned from serving as a director for four years for helping him with the scheme.”

    Pension Life Blog - Where the wheels of the law don´t seem to turn at all - Friendly Pensions - David AustinThey have been asked to pay the money back but by the looks of their social media accounts, I don´t think there is much left.  Camilla’s Facebook and Instagram accounts show her sunning herself on beaches and yachts around the world, and posing at luxury alpine ski resorts. David Austin is pictured on a gondola in Venice. They certainly got to enjoy the proceeds of their many victims’ pensions.

    Camilla Austin was a central part of the operational side of the Friendly Pensions scam.  She and a number of her girlfriends went into nursing homes and approached elderly, frail and vulnerable elderly people.  They easily conned them into signing transfer request forms – all that is required to get their hands on millions of pounds’ worth of pension funds.  And, of course, we all know that the ceding providers do nothing to stop fraudulent transfers.

    As Henry points out, banning these people from acting as trustees or directors, does little to deter past, present and future pension scammers. A ban is barely a slap on the wrist as far as we are concerned; these scammers can still launch any number of future dodgy schemes by simply finding the next crooked stooge – just as XXXX XXXX used the idiotic Karl Dunlop to be a director in the Capita Oak scam.

    Keeping pension savers safe from financial crime should be at the top of the list – but, instead, it is at the bottom.  Pension scammers are left free to commit their crimes over and over again.  Take Julian Hanson: he was busily scamming dozens of Ark victims out of more than £5.3 million worth of pensions back in 2011 and 2012, yet he was not prosecuted or jailed.  Hence, he was still able to get “friendly” with David Austin and go on to scam hundreds more victims out of their pensions.

    Remember the Capita Oak, Henley Retirement Benefits and Westminster pension scams?   These were scams run by XXXX XXXX of Nationwide Benefit Consultants.  However, XXXX was never brought to justice and so went on to operate the Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund/Victory Asset Management scam (STM Fidecs acted as the trustees here).  So hundreds more people were again scammed out of their pensions.  XXXX is currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office – but effectively still free to operate more scams.   We already have our suspicions about his connections to new scams.

    Capita Oak was registered by HMRC on 23.7.2012 (PSTR 00785484RM) by Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Transfers of 31 Memorial Road, Worsley and Premier Pension Solutions of Moraira, Spain. Ward was responsible for the ARK debacle – also with Dalriada – the scam that was to create the birth of Pension Life.

    Pension Life Blog - Where the wheels of the law don´t seem to turn at all - Friendly Pensions - David Austin

    Despite investigations being made into these schemes, Ward was still able to go on and create the CWM monster scheme that saw around 1,000 victims conned out of their pension funds. Ward is hovering somewhere between his collection of luxury villas in Florida and the Spanish Costa Blanca – but at least he is no longer doing pension transfers.  Over the past nine years, Ward can be linked to dozens more pension scams that have left thousands of victims’ funds decimated.

    These cases are just the tip of the iceberg.  We must not forget Philip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh´s investment scam Blackmore Global. This was in the wake of them doing the lead generation for the Capita Oak and Henley Retirement Fund scams.  The Insolvency Service has wound up these schemes, yet Nunn and McCreesh remain free to defraud more victims as they have never been brought to justice.

    David Vilka of Square Mile International was one of the main promoters of the Blackmore Global Fund scam.   He “advised” dozens – possibly hundreds – of victims to invest their pensions in this scam (despite the fact that he is neither qualified nor regulated to give investment advice).  Again, he has never been prosecuted or jailed, so still remains at large – free to continue scamming people out of their pensions.

    We published the Top 10 Deadliest Pension Scammers blog back in February 2018. In this blog, you can read about Fast Pensions and the Moats, as well as Steve Pimlott of Windsor Pensions. Whilst the Fast Pensions scheme has been wound up by the high court and placed in the hands of Dalriada, neither Sara nor Peter Moat is behind bars.

    Pension Life Blog - Where the wheels of the law don´t seem to turn at all - Friendly Pensions - David Austin

    You can see a depressing pattern here: these words are about cold, hard facts.  The authorities are leaving known scammers free to keep scamming.

    Victims of these scams have been left in misery and financial ruin.  Some have taken their own lives. Yet the perpetrators, those guilty of these repeated financial crimes, are free to do as they please.

     

    This area of financial crime really is where the wheels of the law don´t seem to turn.  Shame there aren’t any regulators capable of doing any regulating, or law enforcement agencies capable of enforcing the law.