Tag: pennines

  • Life at Pension Life Fighting Scams – Behind the Scenes

    nikki-behind-the-scenes

     

    My name is Nikki Mitchell.  Lets peep behind the scenes at life at Pension Life, fighting pension scams.  I’m the newest member of the team. I started in June 2016 – there was a lot to learn in six months.  I am PA to Angie, but most importantly I handle a wide variety of tasks.

    Angie has been defending people scammed out of their pensions since 2013.  My colleague Sue Halfyard’s role is member administration.  She completes all the essential documentation that we, HMRC, Dalriada Trustees and the solicitors need.  Sue also liaises with HMRC on the unauthorised payment tax appeals and helps Angie prepare for the Tax Tribunals. Elizabeth is our website and blog-writer and is currently on maternity leave.

    Our website is not only a place to inform people of the work we do, and how we can help people who have fallen foul of pension scammers, but it also serves as a platform to warn others about scammers, so that hopefully we can stop them losing their life savings.

    We are currently dealing with over 30 different schemes:

    Ark; Axiom UP; Barret and Dalton; Baxendale Walker; Capita Oak; Confiance; Continental Wealth Management; EEA/Concept Trustees; Elysian Fuels/SIPPS; Evergreen QROPS; Headforte; Henley; Holborn Assets/Gower Pensions; Holbrook Capital; KJK Investments; Ledger and Simmons; London Quantum; Malvern; Mendip; RL360; Hansard/Trafalgar; LM; Optimus Retirement Benefit Scheme No 1; Peak Performance; Pennines; Salmon Enterprises; Store First SIPPS; Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund/STM Fidecs; Tudor Capital Management; Westminster; Windsor Pensions.

    Sadly, most months we hear about new ones.

    Day to day work in the office consists of managing Angie’s crowded diary, keeping the accounts, liaising with members to keep them abreast of new developments, preparing scheme and member files for the legal teams, responding to the demands of HMRC and various trustees. I also work on campaigns to raise awareness of pension scams, or to campaign for changes in the law to protect pension investments.

    My first few weeks passed in a whirl of new jargon and abbreviations – UTR, Q10, MPVA EIS, PCLS, etc. Some days I spend the day designing and completing databases with members’ information for the solicitors.  Other days I’m number crunching the transfer and loan amounts for an individual scheme.  Some days we all have to change direction as there has been an urgent development. A recent example of this was the Standstill Agreements sent out by Dalriada – the trustees of the Ark Pension schemes. Our first member received an agreement in August 2016.  We have warned all the members that they will be receiving one, and worked with our solicitors to redraft the agreement to protect the members’ interests.

    Being a small, busy team in a hectic office, there is never a dull moment.  Aside from the daily nitty-gritty of the work, there are also the heart-breaking accounts of the members who have been scammed out of their pensions. Consequently, I have felt disbelief at the cruel contempt of the scammers. Reading members’ stories of how they were conned into investing their entire pensions or life savings into dodgy, illiquid schemes is utterly heart-breaking. Speaking to people who have lost everything – their homes, their marriages and their health – through the actions of these arrogant, greedy con-men fills me with horror.

    The greatest shock to me since joining Pension Life has been how the scammers have continually got away with fraud and theft for years.  Also, how ceding providers routinely transfer pensions with hardly even the most rudimentary checks. It has amazed me how so many different types of pension scams are allowed to be set up time and time again, with no thorough controls by HMRC or the regulators.  Moreover, I can’t understand why it takes so long for the scams to be shut down – long after they have been identified.

    We may be a small team here at Pension Life, but with the government’s recent realisation that cold calling needs to be outlawed and the consultation on pension scams:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/pension-scams

    we are hopeful that there may finally be light at the end of the tunnel for existing victims and jail for the scammers.

  • Pennines Pension Scam: How it worked

    Pennines Pension Scam: How it worked

    THE WAY THE PENNINES PENSION SCAM WORKED

    Members were targeted by “Cash From Pensions” and persuaded to transfer into Pennines to get an “unconnected loan” once they had transferred into the Pennines scheme which was invested in Hedge Capital.  The scheme is now in the hands of Dalriada Trustees.

    There were around 143 victims with a total value of £3,280,325.27 worth of transfers in the fund. The Pennines pension scam was run alongside two other schemes: Mendips and Malvern between August 2011 and March 2012.  The trustee was John Laurence Woodward (of HCL) and Jennifer Doris Ilett.  The administrator was  T12 Administration.

    The promoters of the scam were Unlock My Frozen Pension and Cash 4 Pensions (Adrian Price). The “hook” used to tempt victims into the scam was the assurance that they could “legally access pension funds without incurring tax liabilities”.  The fees charged were 3% per annum plus £500 management fee

    Dalriada Trustees were appointed on the 28th March 2012 by the Pensions Regulator. The victims of the Pennines pension scam liberated various amounts ranging from 25% upwards and HMRC started sending out protected assessments in March 2015.

    http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/docs/dn2144796.pdf

    http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2012/21626.html

    One very distressed victim of the Pennines pension scam – who has been treated for severe depression for several years as a result of this scam – reported:

    “I was doing several searches online for a loan, that would maybe accept a person with bad credit when the “unlock my frozen pension” appeared.  It all seemed very legitimate so I sent off an enquiry form.

     I was called back immediately by a member of the unlock my frozen pension team, they spent a lot of time telling me that they would put me in contact with a company called Hedge Capital who would transfer my pension into their scheme, and that I would legally be able to access 25% of my pension fund as a tax-free lump sum which was to be repaid once I reached the age of 55 .  In the meantime, the remaining amount of my pension would be invested , in the scheme until I reached the age of 65 and there was little or no risk involved.

     I was also contacted by a company called Money Helpers, who prompted me to word an email to Towers Watson for the transfer of my pension.  My knowledge of the pension and taxation position was very limited at that time and I believed what I was being told by the Unlock My Frozen Pension people. I contacted Towers Watson who held my pension from JP Morgan (my former employer) about the transfer and they told me they were happy to go ahead with it.

    I believed I was taking an advance on my pension in a perfectly legal manner as it was to be repaid at age 55.”

     

     

  • Pennines and Mendip Pension Liberation Scams

    Pennines and Mendip Pension Liberation Scams

    Pennines, and Mendip Pension Transfer liberation Fraud Scams

    £19m worth of Pensions from 476 people lost though two schemes – Pennines and Mendip.

     

    Pennines and Mendip: Hedge Capital Investments Ltd, Hedge Capital Investment Group Plc and Hedge Capital Ltd were introducers or the financial advisers who proposed the schemes Pennines and Mendip as suitable schemes for 476. The end result was that £19m was invested in Pennines and Mendip. That is an average pension pot of about £40K; a considerable life savings that most people would not throw away lightly. They invested in schemes that they were told were reliable and profitable. It turns out they were nothing like this and the investments are now either locked or lost. There will also be considerable tax to be paid as a result of this abuse of pension liberation.

    The registration of the schemes:

    Pennines Scheme was registered with HMRC on 22 August 2011 as an occupational pension scheme governed by a trust deed dated 23 August 2011 executed with Clarendon Hill Investments Limited which is referred to as “the

    Provider” and the Trustees of the Scheme, John Laurence

    Woodward and Jennifer Doris Ilett

     

    Pennines Scheme was registered with the Regulator on 31 August 2011 as a 9 member defined contribution scheme while the scheme received payments of £3,950,193.78, made up of almost entirely what appear to be transfers in from other pension schemes, of which £3,825,346 (almost 97%) has been transferred out to an entity called “Hedge Capital Investments Limited”

     

    Mendip Scheme was registered with HMRC on 9 September 2011 as an occupational pension scheme governed by a trust deed dated 9 September 2011. The Mendip Scheme was registered with the Regulator on 28 September 2011 the Scheme received payments in of £3,280,325.27, made up of almost entirely what appear to be transfers in from other pension schemes, of which £2,965,701.82 (90%) has been transferred to an entity or entities that are referenced in the accounts as “H Capital I” and “Hedge Capital”

     

    Malvern Scheme

    Malvern Scheme was registered with HMRC on 13 December 2011. The scheme was registered with HMRC being established by Clarendon Hill as “Provider“. Eventually with considerable investigation the Pensions Regulator found serious grounds to believe that the Schemes are being used as vehicles for pension liberation.

     

    Pennines and Mendip Schemes have the same sponsoring employer, which is registered as a dormant, non-trading company. Between September 2011 and

    January 2012, the Pennines and Mendip Schemes received approximately 140 transfers into the schemes to the value of over £7,000,000.00

     

    Some members may be transferring into the Pennines and Mendip Schemes, and possibly the Malvern Scheme, with a view to receiving a lump sum payment or “loan”, calculated as a percentage of the transfer value of their pension “pot”

    It also appears that some members who are receiving a “loan” are also paying interest on that loan back to the loan company.

     

    Dalriada trustees appointed on the 28th March 2012. They froze the assets of these schemes. They also declared that the expenses of the schemes subsequent to this date would be taken from the scheme assets.

    Pension Life work at exposing, preventing and for the main part aiding those that have been affected by these fraudulent schemes. Please make contact.