Tag: PENSION SCAM

  • Halloween ghouls and scammers

    Halloween ghouls and scammers

    Happy Halloween – but do watch out for scary monsters. ESPECIALLY PENSION SCAMMERS!

    The scariest monsters at Halloween (or, indeed, at any time of the year) are the bad guys in financial services.  As my dear old Mum used to say: “It’s not the dead you should be afraid of – it’s the living”.

    Never mind ghouls, ghosts and monsters; beware the death bond salesmen who will try to destroy your life savings.  

    Death bonds – be they from OMI, SEB, Generali, Lombard, Prudential International or Friends Provident – all do the same job: nothing.  Except pay huge commissions to the scammers who flog them.

    First ghoul to watch out for is Dennis Radford of The Spectrum IFA Group. The firm itself is not regulated at all: not for insurance; not for investment; not for trimming a witch’s cat’s nails. It seems to have an association with a Spanish insurance firm called Baskerville Advisers S.L. which claims to have an insurance license. But this does not mean that either Baskerville or Spectrum can provide investment advice legally. If Spectrum does provide investment advice, it is committing a criminal offence.

    Dennis Radford – quoted on the Spectrum IFA Group website as being a specialist in “All areas of Wealth Management” – claims to provide tax-efficient retirement planning and Spanish-compliant investments. This means he is breaking the law as he cannot advise on investments as the firm is not licensed. It is also clear that by mentioning “tax-efficient” and “Spanish-compliant” he is referring to death bonds. Ergo, he is merely a bond salesman flogging expensive, pointless bonds to victims who don’t need them and can’t afford them.

    Dennis Radford: Halloween Ghoul or just an unqualified, ex CWM scammer?

    Radford has another problem: he purports to be a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute. It is possible that he might have passed an exam in the past, but that he has now let his membership lapse. Either way, he is NOT qualified.

    But, Radford’s biggest problem of all is that he is an ex Continental Wealth Management scammer. Along with all the other unqualified, unscrupulous scammers – such as Darren Kirby, Dean Stogsdill, Anthony Downs, Neil Hathaway, Richard Peasley and Marco Floreale – Radford was flogging death bonds from OMI, SEB and Generali and putting his victims into toxic structured notes.

    Pension Life already investigated Spectrum IFA Group last year and found the firm to be full of unqualified “advisers”.

    Evidence strongly suggests that Dennis Radford is vigorously selling insurance bonds. The DGS has already ruled that the way pointless, expensive insurance bonds are sold is illegal. ILLEGAL as in a criminal offence. The Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that life assurance policies used to hold investments are INVALID.

    Of course, Dennis Radford is not alone. Another ex Continental Wealth Management scammer is Phill Pennick. He now runs a firm called Pennick Blackwell and continues to flog death bonds. Pennick claims to be a qualified mortgage broker, but quotes no qualifications as a financial adviser. He is not listed either on the CII or CISI register. Which means he is not qualified to provide financial advice. In fact, he is just another death bond salesman.

    Pennick put one of his victims recently into an Old Mutual International bond (which was a pointless exercise – other than to pay Pennick a fat commission) and then invested the whole pension into one single fund. This was undoubtedly for a further fat (undisclosed) commission.

    Pennick Blackwell (well-known for cold calling) is an amusing firm – it seems to consist of three unqualified idiots: ex CWM scammer Phill Pennick himself; an ex-barman called Kris Taft (who obviously can neither spell Chris not Daft) who claims to have a “genuine desire to help people”. If this were true, Taft (or Daft – or whatever his real name is) wouldn’t be aiding and abetting Pennick in flogging death bonds.

    The worst of the Halloween ghouls are, undoubtedly, the death bond providers themselves. Firms such as Old Mutual International, SEB, Generali, RL360, Hansard, Lombard, Friends Provident and Prudential International, give terms of business to unregulated scammers (such as Continental Wealth Management).

    Just after Halloween, there’s a “Finance Tour” roadshow on the Costa Blanca. Old Mutual International’s Ryan Perkins – Area Sales Manager responsible for flogging these toxic products throughout Europe – had been due to attend. This would have been good as he could have apologised personally to some of the many hundreds of victims of OMI whose life savings have been destroyed. OMI’s business model is to give terms of business to unlicensed firms, known scammers and unqualified “advisers” who are only after the fat commissions. OMI knows perfectly well that the victims who get put into these bonds will be conned into investing in expensive, risky assets which pay even more commissions to the scammers.

    However, it seems Perkins has pulled out of the roadshow. Perhaps he was worried about how many CWM victims would be attending and demanding to know what OMI intends to do about their losses. Clearly a coward, Perkins will have to find other ways of meeting his sales targets by taking the scammers out to lunch – away from the glare of existing victims.

    Perkins – and lily-livered CEO of OMI Peter Kenny – could have perhaps promised to make a donation to CWM-victim Mark Davison’s family at the roadshow. Mark – whose pension was placed in an OMI death bond – died a miserable death after his entire pension was destroyed after being invested in toxic structured notes offered by OMI such as Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and Leonteq.

    Anyone who is interested in this event (advertised in last week’s Euro Weekly News – once so beloved of serial scammer CWM joint-founder Paul Clarke) will be able to attend in Camposol, Los Alcazares, Orihuela Costa, Quesada, Calpe and Javea.

    I hope that some of the victims of the CWM (and other) scams will go along to this event. That way they can help educate the industry, clean up the dross of financial services and get back to proper, regulated, qualified, fee-based, death-bond-free financial advice.

    Happy Halloween!

    (forget the ghouls – just watch out for the scammers!)



  • Pension Life – Pension File October 2019

    Pension Life – Pension File October 2019

    The Kiwis were grass and England was a lawnmower. For a couple of hours we forgot Brexit and remembered our national pride.

    In a Week that saw an inconclusive result in the UK v Europe match (yet again), at least England taught New Zealand how to play rugby.

    And the battle against pension scams moved up a gear as the press reported on the first round in the victims v scammers tournament.

    Olive Press journalist Joshua Parfitt reported on the first round of the criminal proceedings in Denia on the Costa not so Blanca. His surprisingly well-written article pulled no punches as it exposed the one million Euros that Continental Wealth Management boss Jody Smart Bell Kirby Pearson took out of the business in the two years before it collapsed in September 2017.

    Former cleaner Jody claims she was only a “non-active” director of Continental Wealth and that the company was run by former boyfriend Darren Kirby. She also claims that her property company Mercurio Compro S.L. (which received 670k of the million) was just a front for Darren’s property dealings and that he used the company bank account because he didn’t have his own personal bank account.

    Jody’s fashion business – Jody Bell – received 326k of the million. At least she hasn’t tried to claim that this was Darren’s business in reality (and that he had taken to designing frilly frocks between scamming 1,000 investors out of their life savings).

    Whichever way you look at it, however, Jody paid herself 1 million Euros on top of her salary of 280,000 Euros. But this was only during the last two years of the life of doomed Continental Wealth – we still don’t know how many millions she paid herself prior to that – at the height of the structured note/insurance bond scam operated by Darren and his team.

    There’s an interesting comment on the Olive Press article: English naivete is amazing given any chance for a quick return. Doesn’t anybody do due diligence when it comes to investment? This is like episodes on ” L’l Britain”.

    Due diligence would, indeed, have revealed that Continental Wealth operated without a license and that the staff were not qualified.

    Until 2015, Continental Wealth claimed to be an “agent” of a firm in Cyprus called Inter Alliance – and that this allowed the CWM scammers to use the Cyprus license. However, this was entirely untrue as Inter Alliance never had any license and had in fact been fined by the Cyprus regulator for falsely claiming to be licensed.

    Interestingly, when I click on the Olive Press Article, an irritating advert for Abbey Wealth keeps popping up. The ad offers the same old same old scammers’ trick: “free pension review”. So, coming from the same “stable” as Jody and Darren’s Continental Wealth scam, let’s do our due diligence on Abbey Wealth.

    According to the Abbey Wealth website, there are 17 “Senior Wealth” Managers. Most of these have no verifiable evidence of any qualifications, and quite a few are former mortgage brokers. Despite there being no investment license for the firm, several mention investments:

    Ben Noifeld: “investment solutions”; Christian Holbrook: “providing highly-regulated, tax-efficient investment solutions”; Mark Smith: “portfolio management and investment planning”; Michael Chambers: “making clients comfortable with their investments”.

    In Spain, all these “Senior Wealth Managers” are committing a criminal offence by promoting investment advice without a license”.

    There’s one chap – Craig Allanson – who claims to be a Senior International Pensions Adviser, despite no evidence of any qualifications. And the Managing Partner – Victor France – has no evidence of any qualifications (as well as being ex Old Mutual – the kiss of death as far as most Continental Wealth victims are concerned).

    However, there is one adviser who is indeed Chartered: Ian Boden. But why on earth would a man who states he “holds the highest level of qualification of Fellowship and Chartered Financial Planner status with the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII)” work for a firm with no investment license? He, of all people, should know better. He’s either desperate or has some dark skeleton lurking in his cupboard.

    The final nail in the coffin is that the firm’s insurance license is from the Central Bank of Ireland. So there’s no protection for any of the clients if anything goes wrong. The Irish Ombudsman is hopeless, never upholds any victims’ complaints and is clearly bent towards Irish-licensed firms and against their victims. The Ombudsman’s determinations against SEB and OMI victims are clear evidence of this. And talking of SEB, Abbey’s “Senior Wealth Manager” Iwan Thomas (with no evidence of any qualifications) is ex SEB.

    Abbey Wealth – will they altar their insurance bond salesmen’s approach to “wealth management”?

    The comment on the Olive Press article by “Chas” does indeed raise the essential issue of due diligence. DD isn’t hard – it is just a question of knowing the questions to ask and understanding the answers. Finding out about regulation (license) is easy – you just start with the firm’s own website. The licensing bit is usually at the bottom on the website. Then you look at each of the advisers and check on the CII and CISI websites to see if they are listed on the register. Then, most important of all, do a Google search.

    So here’s a prime example: QROPS provider STM is now trying to force members to use an IoM advisory firm called Creechurch Capital. STM is headed up by Alan Kentish (below) who is no stranger to handcuffs himself, and has a penchant for working with scammers.

    A quick Google search reveals that a “whistleblower” had exposed Creechurch for falsifying client records. If you would still want to have this firm as your financial adviser, consider that it is based in the Isle of Man (where many scammers, and Old Mutual International, are based). The Isle of Man has a rubbish regulator and ombudsman and – like Ireland and Gibraltar – seems to positively encourage scams and scammers and treat victims as irrelevant.

    You can tell a lot about a firm by the pictures on their website. In the case of Creechurch Capital, it is a bottle of wine. Does that suggest a client would need to be drunk to use Creechurch? Drunk or sober, any potential client should check out the people behind the firm.

    Managing Director Jim Dolan claims to be qualified with the Chartered Institute of Securities and Insurance. And indeed he shows up on the CISI register as being Chartered FCSI – only not with Creechurch but with a firm in London called Sentient Capital. Nothing particularly suspicious about that, I suppose, but how can a person be Managing Director of two firms simultaneously? (I thought it was only women who can multi-task).

    Miles Ashworth, Creechurch’s Head of Private Wealth, appears on the CISI register as claimed. And the rest of the senior management team seem to be a reasonable bunch. Also, the company was sold to Nayyar Group in March 2019. So somebody must have done their due diligence on the firm and paid good money for it.

    But the question remains: why would a decent bunch of qualified and experienced financial services professionals be seen dead working on the Isle of Man along with so many dodgy, unregulated fund houses such as Blackmore Group and rogue life offices like Old Mutual International and Friends Provident?

    And, even more important, why on earth would the guys at Creechurch want to be associated with STM? Don’t they know that STM has a history of working with scammers and that they facilitated the Trafalgar Multi-Asset Fund scam by investing all 400 victims’ pensions in XXXX XXXX’s own fund?

    So back to the real World: rugby; Brexit; Halloween and the end of the decade looming. It really has been a dreadful decade for pension scams: thousands of people scammed out of £ billions. Let’s hope the scammers at Continental Wealth Management will all get hefty jail sentences and that this will force any advisory firms operating the same business model to turn away from the dark side.

    So what exactly is the “dark side”? In a nutshell:

    • Providing services without a license
    • Having unqualified “advisers”
    • Mis-using insurance bonds (purely for the commissions)
    • Putting low-risk investors in high-risk investments (purely for the commissions)

    HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!

    (don’t let the Dark Side get you!)

  • GFS QROPS LIQUIDATION

    GFS QROPS LIQUIDATION

    GFS QROPS LIQUIDATION: It is with a heavy heart that I have decided to ask the GFS Superannuation Scheme 2 (Hong Kong QROPS) members to support a petition for the winding up of the scheme and the liquidation of the underlying assets.

    For two years, I have been waiting for due process through the courts of Hong Kong to produce the desired result: a clear determination as to who the trustee is and permission for that trustee to take the appropriate action to release the members. I have resisted taking any action which could have prejudiced these proceedings. However, in recent weeks, it has become clear that the court proceedings are not likely to produce the desired result – either any time soon or at all. Meanwhile, the GFS members are trapped in a nightmare of uncertainty – unable to access their rightful benefits. The GFS members need two things urgently:

    1. Their funds back – either the cash held or the funds redeemed out of the high-risk, illiquid, unregulated investments into which their pension savings had been placed fraudulently


    2. Justice for the scammers who conned the members into transferring their pensions to a Hong Kong QROPS in the first place; and then tricked them into investing the money into these inappropriate, high risk, illiquid funds. One of the scammers was David Vilka of Square Mile International in the Czech Republic. Vilka (pictured below with his partner in crime – Fatty Ferguson) has a long track record of conning victims into high-risk investments which pay him fat commissions.


    It is now nearly two years since I first provided an affidavit to the court as to the unsuitable investments and the provenance of the “advisers” who cold called the members, and then – inevitably – made large commissions from the investment commissions.

    A great deal of time, effort and money has gone into the court proceedings, but it must now be acknowledged that it has brought the members no nearer to getting their pensions back (with the possible exception of those members who escaped having their funds invested and are still sitting in cash). 

    I am, therefore, going to ask the court in Hong Kong to order the winding up of the scheme and a full investigation into the investments – including to whom investment introduction commissions were paid – to be carried out. This should also include an application for the winding up of the underlying funds: Blackmore Global, Swan, GRRE, Eco Vista and Granite if possible.

    There is always a cost to liquidation proceedings, but I consider we have now reached the stage where the investors have got 100% of nothing, and we need to pursue (vigorously) the chance to at least get a lower percentage of something.

    Let us look at the background to QROPS scams. There is nothing inherently wrong with a QROPS. It is nothing but a “wrapper” which is registered by HMRC and can accept transfers from UK, HMRC-recognised pension schemes. This is important, as any person who transfers a pension to a non-HMRC recognised scheme is liable to a 55% tax charge as the transaction would be an UNAUTHORISED PAYMENT.

    But let us be clear: a scheme is given “recognised” status by HMRC because the administrator/trustee of the scheme says it complies with HMRC’s rules. HMRC does nothing to verify this – and if they decide some time later that the self-certification of the scheme was wrong (either deliberately or accidentally) then any members would get hit with a 55% unauthorised payment tax charge.

    The “O” in QROPS stands for “Overseas”. This means that a QROPS is supposed to do what it says on the tin: “provide an overseas pension for people living overseas”. This is the spirit of the QROPS legislation. A QROPS should only rarely be used for UK residents with high-value pension funds. A QROPS should NEVER be used for UK residents with low-value pension funds.

    However – for years – scammers have seized upon QROPS and abused them as a golden opportunity for scamming victims out of their retirement savings. As far back as 2009, Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions was operating pension busting out of several New Zealand QROPS including Southern Star and Endeavour. Ward was, of course, earning huge commissions out of the transfers and the liberations.

    In 2012, after the collapse of the Ark (occupational pension) scam (which destroyed nearly 500 victims’ pensions totalling £27 million), Ward turned his attention to the Evergreen New Zealand QROPS. This operated 50% liberation and destroyed 300 victims’ pensions totaling £10 million – earning Ward 10% on the transfer fee and further fat commissions on the underlying Penrich and Spectrum investments.

    Since then, the use of QROPS for investment scams has become rife – replacing the previous weapon of preference: the bogus UK-based occupational scheme. Finally the Malta Regulator (MFSA) has introduced stiffer rules to try to prevent this. A prime example of a large-scale scam involving various QROPS in Malta, Gibraltar and Guernsey was the Continental Wealth fraud which involved 1,000 victims and £100 million worth of investments. Investors’ life savings were placed in pointless, commission-laden insurance bonds such as OMI, SEB and Generali, then invested in toxic structured notes which paid the scammers further hefty commissions.

    In 2014, STM Fidecs in Gibraltar was operating a scam in partnership with known scammer XXXX XXXX (who had been behind the Capita Oak scam and is now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office). STM accepted 400 transfers from XXXX XXXX – an unqualified and unregulated adviser – in respect of UK-resident victims who should never have been transferred to an offshore scheme. STM then accepted £21 million worth of investment instructions into XXXX XXXX’s own fund: Trafalgar Multi Asset. This fund – a UCIS fund which was illegal to promote to retail UK residents – is now being wound up and the investors could face a total loss.

    In parallel, Harbour (another QROPS provider) in Malta (which had rejected XXXX XXXX’s Trafalgar scam) was accepting transfers and investment instructions from David Vilka into the Blackmore Global investment scam. Vilka was also using Integrated Capabilities and Investors Trust to earn even more eye-watering commissions from flogging Blackmore Global. Ironically, STM now owns Harbour Pensions – having bought the firm out and paid former owner Justin Caffrey £1 million.

    Investigations into the Blackmore Global investment scam have been ongoing for several years. The fund falsely claims the Investment Manager to be a company in Spain called Meridan Capital Partners (who claimed they had never heard of Blackmore Global – or the scammers behind the fund: Patrick McCreesh and Phillip Nunn). There have never been any audited accounts for the Blackmore fund. However, it is known that the underlying assets include Swan and GRRE – funds into which the GFS members are also invested.

    There are two camps of GFS members:

    a. Those who were invested in Blackmore Global, Swan, GRRE, Eco Vista and SN Granite funds and, apparently, “locked in” for between five and ten years

    b. Those who were not invested in any of these UCIS funds, but who are still in cash and appear to be trapped somewhere between the conflicted trustees in Hong Kong. Some of these members are in Hansard insurance bonds. Hansard will not release their money until the issue of the trustees is clarified or the trustees voluntarily reach agreement.

    Part of the reason for my decision is that it is clear that one of the investments – the Blackmore Global fund – is part of a wider investment scam.  This fund is also invested in the other funds: Swan and GRRE etc., and is run by Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh who were running the lead generation and cold calling operation for the Capita Oak/Henley pension scam.  All those involved in Capita Oak are now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

    Blackmore Global is part of the Blackmore Group which also operates a bond called Blackmore Bond.  This bond was promoted by Surge Group (Paul Careless) which was also responsible for the promotion of another failed bond: London Capital & Finance.  It is public knowledge that Surge was paid over £100 million to promote these two bonds.  LC&F is now being wound up by Finbarr O’Connell (below) of Smith & Williamson. Careless is now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office following his arrest in June 2019.

    I will be sending members a letter of authority to sign which I will submit to the court in Hong Kong in support of the petition. I am instructing solicitors immediately. Please be advised that this decision has been taken with the greatest of regret. I have watched and waited quietly while the different parties have spent a fortune on legal fees – but members are still in limbo. I cannot allow this to continue: wasting members’ precious remaining years.

    I know that members have been frustrated by the lack of news, and I am deeply sorry. However, it was not prudent to give out information while there was a possibility that the matter could have been resolved in court – or, preferably, amicably. It would have been irresponsible of me to disclose anything that could have prejudiced the proceedings or hindered a possible resolution to the deadlock in the litigation.

    We are now way past that point. Against a backdrop of the legal stalemate in the Hong Kong court; multiple associated investigations by the Serious Fraud Office in similar cases; numerous winding-up orders against various funds and bonds with links and similarities to this case; the complete absence of any audited accounts by any of the funds in which the GFS members’ pensions are invested; evidence of pension liberation; absence of full disclosure or cooperation by the parties involved, I don’t believe there is any alternative.

    I will now be taking legal action against the various parties who claim to be trustees in the Hong Kong court. These include: Connaught West; Michael John Foggo; Tribune Ltd.

    The priority is firstly to protect the interests of the members and secondly to bring to justice those responsible for putting the members’ funds at risk.

  • Jody Smart of CWM – courting justice

    Jody Smart of CWM – courting justice

    Jody Smart (or Bell or Kirby or Pearson) who was shareholder and sole director of CWM - Continental Wealth Management/Trust. In court in Denia facing criminal charges.

    Jody Smart (or Bell or Kirby or whatever name she uses now) appeared in the Criminal Court in Denia on 1st October 2019. As one of the group of defendants in the fraud trial – including her former partner Darren Kirby (who didn’t turn up) – she testified about her involvement in the £100 million Continental Wealth Management/Trust (CWM) investment scam.

    CWM – of which Jody was shareholder and sole director – collapsed at the end of September 2017.

    The event was covered by journalist Joshua Parfitt of The Olive Press newspaper https://issuu.com/theolivepress/docs/online_issue_a/1?e=1186741/73089185 and was a relatively low key affair in the Denia Court Number 3 . Jody’s ex boyfriend Darren failed to show (no surprise there). The only entertainment on offer for anyone watching (and hoping for some sign that justice will be done) was her current beau, Franco Pearson, shouting “fucking scumbag” in the court waiting room.

    Franco Pearson of Oceana Club, current boyfriend of Jody Smart (or Bell or Kirby or Pearson) who was legally responsible for Continental Wealth Management/Trust.

    This particular criminal case involves not just the investment scam itself, but also some previously-unknown anciliary scams involving bogus property transactions and false promises of shares in CWM in exchange for hard cash.

    One of the complainants – Mark D – had handed over his final salary Shell pension (worth £415,000) plus a further £140,000 to Jody’s company: CWM. Mark was told he would be given a 5% shareholding in the company and that it was worth £10,000,000. Jody’s then boyfriend, Darren Kirby, had promised Mark the shares in return for £400,000 – and told him the money was going to be used to prop up the ailing company and also be invested in Jody’s fashion business. Mark D – who lost not just his pension but his house – developed severe depression and diabetes which he struggled to manage. After being left penniless by Jody and Darren’s CWM scam, he died alone in August 2019.

    In the Denia court, Jody confirmed she was the sole director of Continental Wealth Trust (formerly Continental Wealth Management). The company held no license to provide either insurance or investment advice – and was selling life (death) bonds illegally; provided by rogue companies such as Old Mutual International, SEB and Generali. She stated it had not been possible to close the company because there had been so many debts. This comes as no surprise as Darren had paid £1.3 million to victims as compensation for investment losses, and had also pumped £500,000 into the Jody Bell fashion business. The court was also told that Jody had been paid 12,000 Euros a month by CWM.

    In court, Jody denied holding any position in CWM and stated that she had no financial qualifications. But here I start to wonder whether, perhaps, something got lost in translation. In previous interviews, Jody had openly boasted about running CWM and also the sister operation Female Wealth Management. She claimed to have made £13 million out of financial services.

    Jody also stated in the Denia Court that she had never had anything to do with the company or the clients (perhaps she was paid 12,000 Euros a month just to look glamorous in reception?). However, in a previous t.v. interview she had stated that her role was “to expand the company and see where we could go forward.  Bring the best people on board to work for us“.

    In the same interview, Jody had expanded on CWM’s activities: “We offer the whole package for expats.  Advising on the investment of funds.  We also do a pension release.  There is a scheme where we can release  your pension from the UK.  Obviously, we’ve been very successful with that.  Being in the climate that we’re in at the moment, there are a lot of people, unfortunately, who can’t pay their mortgages or their private school fees. 

    Its like saying “we’re  gonna give you money and its not gonna cost you anyfink.  Obviously, we can just change your life really”.

    She was clearly referring to the Evergreen pension liberation scam in which more than 300 people certainly had their lives changed by losing their pensions and getting 50% loans from Stephen Ward’s Delaware-registered finance company Marazion. CWM did all the cold calling and administration for this scam – from which Ward earned 10% of the overall £10 million worth of pensions transferred into the bogus New Zealand-based QROPS run by Simon Swallow and Kenji Stevens.

    Far from not costing the victims “anyfink”, 300 people are now being pursued for repayment of the Marazion loans and have lost the other 50% of their pensions left in Evergreen, which is now being wound up. They also face 55% tax charges on the 50% loans as unauthorised payments.

    Jody was apparently (according to the court transcript) asked in court if she knew anything about the CWM business of which she was the sole director. She replied “no” and that Darren told her she could be a director along with him as she spoke Spanish, that he wanted to protect her and that it was going to be good for her.

    So this leaves me wondering: was Jody lying in her recorded interviews which she used to promote CWM and her Jody Bell fashion business, or was she lying in court?

    After testifying that everything had been Darren’s fault, that he had manipulated her and killed her mum’s chickens, Jody refused to answer any further questions.

    So with no further answers from Jody Smart/Bell/Kirby/Pearson, we can only listen to the evidence provided by her in her video interviews. She is portrayed as the director of the CWM wealth management company and is worth an estimated £13m.  She has a stunning house in Spain (currently up for sale for 760,000 Euros), a fleet of fast cars, a diamond ring as big as a door knob worth 39,000 Euros, and an impressive limited edition Jimmy Choo collection. 

    In one video interview, Jody started to describe how she had invested a lot of money in her fashion business and that after only six months the sales were “phenomenal”; that with her hard work and sheer determination……(here she pauses as a waiter brings a bottle of champagne)….

    Full of bubbly, Jody goes on to state that she didn’t doubt herself – that her ambition (which came from a burning desire inside her) would help her succeed. Her conclusion was that she just knew she was “gonna reach the stars”.

    Of course, victim Mark D had no idea how quickly he was going to “reach the stars”. Furthermore, there are hundreds of other CWM victims who are afraid that they too will meet a similar fate: dying – starving and penniless.

    But I have faith in Jody – because she is very enthusiastic about her charitable works. She is on record, in one of her t.v. interviews, as saying:

    “We done a lotta charity work.  I’m lucky. There aren’t a lotta people as fortunate as what I am.”

    Jody Smart's magnificent Spanish villa - on sale for 760,000 Euros (hopefully to help pay back some of the victims of her company CWM who lost their life savings)

    Jody’s magnificent house is on the market for 760,000 Euros – and I get a sneaking feeling that she is flogging this pile of real estate full of glamorous furniture in order to help the victims of the CWM scam. In her t.v. interview she stated: “I like to help people.  It’s in me.” So, hopefully, the 760,000 Euros will go towards helping some of the people who have been financially ruined by her company.

    It is, of course, too late for Mark D. One of the things that killed him was the fact that he couldn’t afford to eat properly – and this is particularly dangerous for people who are suffering from diabetes. But there is hope for others – Jody has set up a facility to feed those who can’t afford to eat because her company scammed them out of their life savings: The Oceana Club near Calpe.

    Rather more glamorous than the run of the mill soup kitchen, those who have lost their life savings and are in need of a hot meal will – I feel sure – be warmly welcomed at The Oceana Club. Hopefully Jody’s boyfriend Franco will embrace this charitable initiative just as warmly as he welcomes the CWM victims with a greeting rather more gentlemanly than “fucking scumbag”.

  • Money First – World First

    Money First – World First

    When I grow up, I want to be a hairdresser. Not a care in the World other than how short/long/blonde/purple/curly/straight my clients want their Barnets. And nothing to talk about other than where they will go on holiday: Torremolinos, Benidorm or Amsterdam (wink wink…).

    World First – so boring you’ll never lose any money using it.

    But for now, I’m stuck in the real World – the one where all I see is scams from morning ’til night. All my clients are heartbroken, worried sick, traumatised and devastated. Few of them can afford holidays – much less frequent trips to the hairdresser.

    I am regularly asked whether I can recommend a financial adviser. Not just any financial adviser – but one with a magic wand who can somehow rescue whatever is left after a greedy scammer has destroyed most of their victims’ life savings. Bearing in mind most offshore advisers are still stuck in the offshore bond-of-death rut (Old Mutual, RL360, Friends Provident etc.), I rarely make recommendations.

    There are a few financial institutions that people can’t live without: bank; insurer; pension provider; mortgage lender and credit card issuer. Then a few more that make life smoother: currency exchanger; tax adviser; financial adviser.

    I can make some recommendations about the first batch. My bank – CaixaBank – is the one I recommend because it is the one closest to my house (takes me 90 seconds to walk there). It is next to the barber and opposite the fruit shop – so couldn’t be handier. I also get my insurance, pension and plastic there – so no need ever to go anywhere else.

    I used to be a tax adviser so tend to do tax stuff myself, and don’t need a financial adviser because in Spain banks tend to do a pretty good job with money. Most people in Spain who escape the clutches of the chiringuitos (scammers) just tend to use their trusted – or nearest – bank. (In fact, the Spanish look on with astonishment at the British expats who get regularly scammed by British expats – and wonder why Brits don’t just use properly-regulated and qualified Spanish advisers).

    The only money thing I contract out is currency transfer. And for this I use a company called World First – and have done for ten years. Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t an advert. But if World First chose to send me a “thank you” for this blog in the shape of a large box of chocolates I would be unashamedly delighted.

    Chocolates gratefully received from World First!

    So what do I like about World First? Well, er, nothing – actually. It is really boring. It does what it says on the tin: currency transfers. It charges what it says it will charge (also in big letters on the tin). It is as transparent as it is dull. When I move Sterling from my UK bank and get Euros in my Spanish bank, I get the right amount. To the penny (or, rather, cent). On time. No dramas.

    There are no frills. Nothing exciting ever happens. No nasty surprises – but no nice ones either. I’m never promised three for the price of two, or that I will lose a stone in a week, or that I will meet my handsome prince and live happily ever after. But most important of all, I am never promised a “guaranteed 8% return”.

    This magic 8% carrot has been the downfall of thousands of scam victims and is drearily predictable: Ark, Capita Oak, Henley, London Quantum, Continental Wealth, dozens of unqualified/unregulated scams and scammers, all promised 8%. In fact, so routine is the 8% guarantee scam, that it almost guarantees 100% destruction of the original fund. Paul Lewis recently published a rather good blog on the subject.

    Paul has listed some of the recent scams which have destroyed thousands of victims’ savings by promising the magic 8% bait: Mederco; London Capital & Finance; HAB. There are, of course, dozens more such as Axiom Legal Financing, Premier New Earth, various student accommodation and nursing home funds, car parks, store pods and derelict German sheds. Plus thousands of toxic structured notes like those provided by Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and Leonteq – and distributed by the bond-of-death providers themselves: Old Mutual International, Friends Provident International, RL360, SEB, Generali, Hansard etc. And sold by unscrupulous “advisers”.

    All this does beg the question: why does an FCA-regulated company such as World First never cross the line – while so many others are happy and eager to do so regularly? What is it about a boring old currency transfer service that sets it apart from “advisers” who routinely sign off DB pension transfers or who openly provide regulated services without being regulated?

    We know from the British Steel debacle that out and out scams can easily be perpetrated right under the very nose of the FCA – with Active Wealth and Celtic Wealth having earned fortunes out of flogging collapsible flats in Cape Verde to the steelworkers for their pension investents. We know that Gerard Associates openly aided and abetted serial scammer Stephen Ward in the London Quantum scam – investing victims’ pension funds in all sorts of crap such as Dolphin and eucalyptus forests. (Gary Barlow’s Gerard Associates is still on the FCA register btw!).

    More recently we know that the FCA deliberately turned a blind eye to the obvious investment scam London Capital & Finance, and that Hargreaves Lansdown was openly and brazenly promoting Neil Woodford’s high-risk and illiquid Woodford Equity and Income fund (now suspended). It is public knowledge that the FCA’s obscenely overpaid chief Andrew Bailey has long since lost interest in the boring task of regulating as he only has eyes for the top spot at the Bank of England (God help us!).

    I think the answer is that the rogue, greedy, irresponsible firms who flout the regulations see an eye-watering opportunity to make a lot of money. So caution is not just thrown to the winds but also flushed down the loo. The golden opportunity won’t last long, but these opportunists don’t care how many people get ruined in the process – they will just make hay while the sun shines and then shrug their shoulders when it all goes tits up. After all, what is the worst that will happen? The FCA might rummage around in someone’s drawers and find a wet fish; or someone at ministry level might get cross enough to wag a finger or two.

    A fund manager once said to me that he was astonished at how many financial services professionals get involved in scams and dodgy schemes. He said that this is an industry where practitioners can make a very respectable living, and keep their reputation and conscience intact. He also speculated that the huge pile of money that could be made from opportunistic bad practice (naked euphemism!) is only ever short term – and that it is bound to come crashing down eventually. And then, if the offender wants to keep trading, they have to start all over again with the next gig. And the next. And….(etc). They know that the regulators and the police are way too slow, lazy and stupid to do anything about it all – so it is a fertile hunting ground for the unscrupulous and inventive.

    So back to my World: my only two financial services providers are CaixaBank and World First. Both pretty boring and predictable. Day in day out; year in year out – they do what they say they will do and charge me the standard rate for the privilege of routinely boring the pants off me. I know I will never be rich – and my life will never be exciting. But I also know I will never be either penniless or surprised (unless a fat box of chocolates rocks up next week!).

    Boring pays

    Being boring and straight does pay off. Chinese giant Alibaba recently bought a 40% stake in World First for a figure reported to be around $700m. Watch and learn ye scammers, opportunists and greedy bad guys.

  • 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.

  • Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again!

    Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again!

    Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again! Just how many warning signs do you need?

    How many warnings do you really need?

    Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again! After the Continental Wealth Management debacle – a fraud facilitated by the usual suspects: Old Mutual International, Generali and SEB – the public must be warned about similar firms which are likely to scam unsuspecting victims.

    In the case of Alliance Partnership Limited – a firm registered in Nevis (where so many scams and scammers are registered because of the secrecy afforded them), there is just about every single warning sign possible. The public must be aware of the dangers posed by this firm.

    With an office in the Czech Republic, this firm has been selling insurance products and investing victims’ funds into unregulated collectives – such as LM – illegally.

    Look at the Alliance Partnership Limited website and you will find all the warning signs are clearly there in black, white, green and red:

    The exact same three death offices as used by Continental Wealth Management to destroy up to £50,000,000

    You simply couldn’t make it up: Alliance Partnership Limited is proudly displaying the three worst insurance companies: Generali, Old Mutual International and SEB, which facilitated the £100 million Continental Wealth Management scam between 2008 and 2017.

    Generali, Old Mutual International and SEB accepted investment instructions from this unregulated firm of scammers into high-risk, toxic structured notes and risky, illiquid UCIS funds. Long after the losses became evident, as low-risk investors were placed into these entirely inappropriate high-risk investments – only suitable for professional or sophisticated investors – Generali, Old Mutual International and SEB carried on accepting identical investment dealing instructions from the scammers at Continental Wealth Management.

    Alliance Partnership Limited has an insurance license in the Czech Republic and boasts that it can “help all of our clients and their unique needs related to the life journey of their financial aspirations”. They claim to be “financial planners” and that “no future is too big or too small for us”. 

    Alliance Partnership – ‘ere we go again! Yet another firm with an insurance license flogging expensive insurance bonds that nobody needs. If an investor wants to be stuck in a toxic, unnecessary insurance bond – provided by Old Mutual International, Generali, Hansard Global or SEB – which will cost a huge amount in fees and will offer high-risk, unregulated investments – then this is indeed the solution!

    But sensible investors, who don’t want to lose their life savings, should steer well clear. Alliance Partnership claims they are “here to help”. They are using unethical, unscrupulous insurance companies which will take business from any old unregulated scammers. Old Mutual International, Generali, Hansard and SEB deliberately ruin their clients’ funds with high-risk toxic funds, so the public needs to be warned about this firm.

    The only reason firms such as Alliance Partnership use these death offices, is because insurance bonds pay 8% commission. And we know there is a history of using rogue funds such as LM. So steer well clear! Others have been ruined so it is important to learn from them.

    How many more alarm bells do you want?

    How many alarm bells would you like? If the above warnings aren’t enough, here are some more – all there in black and white on the Alliance Partnership website: http://www.alliancesro.com/about.html

    • Alliance Partnership claims to offer savings plans. As it is openly promoting the likes of Generali and RL360, these are bound to be the same savings plans as used to scam thousands of victims into these toxic, expensive, inflexible plans.
    • Alliance Partnership is promoting “alternative investments”. We know that it was selling the LM fund to its victims, and this should ring loud alarm bells – because most of these so-called alternatives only serve to pay the introducer large commissions. Funds such as LM have ruined thousands of investors who have lost all their life savings thanks to unscrupulous brokers and introducers posing as “advisers”.
    • Alliance Partnership claims to offer portfolio and wealth management. The firm does not have an investment license – so it can’t legally give investment advice.
    • Alliance Partnership says it can provide pension planning services – but with just an insurance license, this is illegal.
    • Alliance Partnership is promoting the Canaccord Genuity fund – a fund which is under investigation by the FCA for non-disclosure of fees.
    • Alliance Partnership is featuring not just rogue insurance companies such as OMI, SEB and Generali on its website, but also RL360, Zurich Hansard and FPI. It is disappointing to see Investors Trust advertised on the website: this is the only life office which has ever done anything decent for investment scam victims.
    • Alliance Partnership claims to have a “team of financial planners”, and yet there is no “meet the team” section on the website. This means potential victims have no idea who the team are and can’t check up on their qualifications.
    • Alliance Partnership is promoting Azure Pensions – a QROPS run by Integrated Capabilities. This was a firm which facilitated the Blackmore Global investment scam and should be given a wide berth. https://pension-life.com/azure-pensions-a-reputation-built-on-lack-of-trust/

    Don’t take my word for it. Read the Alliance Partnership website. All the alarm bells are clearly there. Learn from past victims’ mistakes – don’t be next!

  • Locked Out of LinkedIn

    Locked Out of LinkedIn

    Locked out of LinkedIn for Defamation? Moi?

    “Due to the receipt of multiple defamation claim reports, your account has been restricted pending your agreement to our terms. Please note that it’s our policy to terminate user accounts when we receive multiple reports of this nature.”

    But who could have reported me for defamation? The problem is that there are so many possible candidates who have been caught contravening regulations; not having sufficient qualifications and abusing titles. And, most of all, causing their clients to lose money.

    So, been wracking my brain and wondering what I could have written in my blogs that could possibly be classed as defamatory. Part of the problem is that I rarely write good stuff. You won’t often read things like: “Mr. G from the Costa Lotta told me he was so delighted with the advice he received from his properly regulated, qualified and behaved adviser that he hasn’t lost any money”.

    I only tend to write about people who have lost money – because they are the only people who contact me and ask for help.

    Getting out my crystal ball to find out who reported me for defamation.

    So, dusting off my trusty crystal ball, I went through all my blogs in the past year to see if I could work out who was behind this spurious accusation(or series of spurious accusations) of defamation. And I came across quite a few likely suspects. And of course, they are all parties who have caused victims to lose money or to be put in a position where they are at risk of losing money.

    Abbey Wealth – Spanish firm with no investment license currently being sued alongside Old Mutual International in the Spanish Civil Court
    Andrew Bailey – Head of Knitting at the Facilitating Crime Advocates – allergic to regulating; has his eye on the Bank of England top job
    Aviva – First in the alphabet of lazy, callous, negligent ceding pension providers who routinely hand over £ millions to the scammers
    Azure Pensions – Continuing trend set by Integrated Capabilities and Optimus QROPS; facilitated the Blackmore Global investment scam
    Belgravia Wealth – Dodgy advisory firm with job offer for financial advisers: “no financial qualifications needed”
    Berkeley Burke – Any old investments as long as they are pure crap, high risk, illiquid and pay the scammers high commissions
    Blackmore Global – Fund of illiquid, risky assets with no independent audit and no sign of return of funds to hundreds of victims
    Blevins Franks – Criminal offence in Spain with sale of Lombard death bonds which lock victims in and charge high commissions/fees
    CCI – Niall Coburn’s Coburn Corporate Intelligence – Australian wannabe claims management company
    David Vilka – long history of scamming victims into QROPS to be invested in worthless crap such as Blackmore Global
    Dolphin Trust – now known as the German Property Group with hundreds of angry investors (lenders) desperate to get their money back
    DWF Solicitors – acted both for the Insolvency Service and Stephen Ward (the scammer) in the Capita Oak pension scam
    FCA – knitting club for lazy people only interested in after-the-event, low-hanging fruit and zero interest in proactive prevention or action
    Flying Colours – run by Guy Myles (too many Ys)
    Generali – provider of long-term savings plans and death bonds to scam victims out of their savings and pay scammers huge commissions
    Gerrard Associates – firm run by Gary Barlow; worked in league with Stephen Ward; responsible for the London Quantum pension scam
    Gleeson Bessent – shut down by Insolvency Service; directors banned for “mis-management” and high-risk, high-commission investments
    HMRC – registers the scammers as pension trustees; registers the scam schemes; taxes the victims
    Insolvency Service – winds up investments used by scammers but doesn’t take robust action against the scammers
    International Adviser – PR agency for Old Mutual International
    XXXX XXXX – scammer behind Capita Oak, Henley, Westminster and Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund/STM Fidecs; under investigation by SFO
    John Ferguson – scammer who works with David Vilka; runs Square Mile Financial Services, Aspinall Chase and Aktiva Wealth Management
    Leonteq – provider of high-commission gambling products for scammers to earn high commission and to destroy victims life savings
    London Capital & Finance – “mini bond” destroyed 11,625 investors’ savings totalling £237,207,497; promoted by Surge Group
    Michael Doherty – cheeky Irishman who runs Robusto and Woodbrook Group which employed three ex Continental Wealth scammers
    Neil Woodford – former fund management star whose fund is now suspended and publicly exposed as being high-risk and illiquid
    Niall Coburn – Australian lawyer/barrister who aspires to claims management and is planning on learning English one of these days
    Old Mutual International – death bonds; works with scammers to destroy victims’ life savings e.g. £94m worth of Leonteq structured notes
    Olive Press – freebie publication in Spain which never lets the truth get in the way of a good story
    Patrick McCreesh – Phillip Nunn’s partner; lead generation for the Capita Oak scam and now runs the Blackmore Group investment scams
    Pensions Ombudsman – being deluged by Pension Life with complaints against negligent ceding providers who ignored the Scorpion warning
    Pensions Regulator – registered all the occupational pension scams and facilitated £ millions of financial crime
    Peter Kenny – CEO of Old Mutual International death office and responsible for the destruction of £billions of victims’ life savings
    Philip Hammond – pursuer of “caravan crime” who refused to address pension crime
    Phillip Nunn – partner of Patrick McCreesh; responsible for over 1,000 victims of XXXX XXXX´s pension scams losing their pensions
    Quilter Cheviot – in “partnership” with Old Mutual International and obviously doesn’t care about their professional reputation
    Robusto – owned by Michael Doherty and staffed by unqualified “advisers”
    Russell Fund – provider of mediocre, expensive investments to Blevins Franks
    Seagate – unregulated Spanish firm run by unqualified would-be “advisers”; claim to “work with all major International Death Companies”
    SEB – provider of death bonds and collaborates with scammers to destroy victims’ funds by investing in high-risk, high-commission crap
    Square Mile International Financial Services – Czech Republic firm run by scammers John Ferguson and David Vilka; insurance license only
    Stephen Ward – where to start!  Prolific scammer; destroyed thousands of victims’ life savings with high-risk, high-commission investments
    STM Fidecs – collaborated with scammer XXXX XXXX in the Trafalgar Multi-Asset Fund scam which conned 400 victims out of £21 million
    Surge Group – promoters of London Capital & Finance “mini bond”, and also Nunn & McCreesh’s Blackmore Bond – earning Surge over £60m
    Tinky Winky – arrogant twat, ex tPR, now LGPS
    Tolleys – publisher of Stephen Ward’s Pensions Taxation Manual
    Utmost Wealth – took over Generali but still hasn’t compensated the victims for their losses at the hands of the scammers
    Woodbrook Group – run by Michael Doherty; offers structured products to retail clients; owns Mondial in Dubai and Robusto in Germany
    Woodford Equity Income Fund – run by Neil Woodford and in deep shit

    Out of this lot, I have no idea who might have reported me to LimpedIn for defamation. But CRYSTAL BALLS to whoever it was.

  • Dear Boris – when you’re PM…

    Dear Boris – when you’re PM…

    Boris Johnson for PM – sorting out pension scams?

    Hey BJ – just a quick note to wish you luck in the PM contest. If you win, please make it your priority to sort out pension fraud.

    Treating head lice – like fighting pension scammers – is a matter of the utmost urgency. Everyone knows that if you don’t kill the lice, they keep breeding and before you know it there’s a serious infestation. Same thing happens with pension scammers.

    The British government must now sort this urgent problem out – scammers must be treated like head lice.

    The problem is that for the past ten years, the British government – as well as HMRC, the Pensions Regulator, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Fraud Office, the Insolvency Service, the Police, the FCA and Dalriada Trustees – have left pension scammers free to breed. Like head lice.

    Just to remind you Boris, you have pension scam victims in your own constituency and you represent their rights. And every single person in the UK exists to do one thing: RETIRE. So, the pension scammers defraud these people (thousands of them) out of what they have worked hard for all their lives.

    I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, but let me explain to you how pension scams work:

    One appalling example is the Salmon Enterprises case. Two former Inland Revenue officers – Andrew Meeson and Peter Bradley – set up a pension trustee company called Tudor Capital Management and registered a bogus occupational pension scheme called Salmon Enterprises. HMRC and the Pensions Regulator accepted the registration without question.

    In 2010, HMRC, the Pensions Regulator and the Crown Prosecution Service started to investigate Meeson and Bradley for tax fraud and money laundering offences. (After three years of “investigation”, Meeson and Bradley were jailed for eight years apiece).

    But, neither HMRC nor the Pensions Regulator warned the public or the industry. While one hundred victims were scammed out of their pensions, HMRC continued to confirm to ceding providers that Salmon Enterprises was an HMRC-registered pension scheme. And the Pensions Regulator deliberately concealed the fact that the trustees were under criminal investigation for fraud.

    So now HMRC stands to collect £millions in tax from the victims who have lost their pensions.

    At the same time as HMRC and the Pensions Regulator were facilitating the Salmon Enterprises pension scam, they were also facilitating the Ark scam.

    The main promoter of Ark was Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions SL and Premier Pension Transfers Ltd. HMRC met with Stephen Ward in February 2011 – after six months of communicating with him and expressing concern about the reciprocal “loans” he was facilitating. But still neither HMRC nor the Pensions Regulator shut the Ark schemes down. And 486 people got scammed out of their pensions and are now fighting off tax demands by HMRC.

    HMRC and the Pensions Regulator went on to register dozens more bogus occupational pension schemes by Stephen Ward. And so, after Ark, thousands more victims lost their pensions and got huge tax bills from HMRC. Many people reckon – understandably – that HMRC is even worse than the scammers.

    • The Pensions Regulator appointed Dalriada as independent trustee to ARK. But Dalriada said it was “not within their remit” to report Stephen Ward and the rest of the scammers who promoted and ran ARK.
    • The Pensions Regulator appointed Dalriada as independent trustee to CAPITA OAK. But Dalriada said it was “not within their remit” to report Stephen Ward and the rest of the scammers who promoted and ran CAPITA OAK.
    • The Pensions Regulator appointed Dalriada as independent trustee to WESTMINSTER. But Dalriada said it was “not within their remit” to report Stephen Ward and the rest of the scammers who promoted and ran WESTMINSTER .
    • And so it went on and on and on….and the head lice continued to breed. XXXX XXXX entered the arena and after running the Capita Oak scam (300 victims who lost £10 million between them), he went on to run the Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund scam along with STM Fidecs – and another 400 victims lost over £20 million worth pension funds.
    • Stephen Ward also went on unchallenged, and scammed more victims out of millions in the London Quantum pension scam. (Also in the hands of Dalriada Trustees).

    So what next BJ? Are you going to make this a priority? You need to get all these scammers put where they belong – behind bars. You need decent regulation and law enforcement to put things right and stop this from happening again. You must make Britain a safe place for decent citizens to work hard and save for a pension without getting defrauded by scammers and losing the lot.

    Most of all, you need a tax amnesty to stop HMRC from destroying the victims of fraud. If you don’t do this, you might as well bring in a law to prosecute victims of rape.

    You also need to understand that pension fraud has moved on. Many of the scammers now use offshore pension schemes to get pensions out of the UK and into high-risk, toxic investments and insurance bonds that pay huge commissions and destroy the pension funds.

    Billions of pounds’ worth of life savings have been lost. Millions of pounds’ worth of tax liabilities have been demanded by HMRC unjustly – from the very victims who are now at their wits’ end through losing their pensions. The honour of Britain as a safe, well-regulated jurisdiction is trashed. The reputation of British financial advisers is compromised. The industry is riddled with non-compliant and fraudulent practices in all British expat countries.

    Boris, you need to promise you will sort this appalling mess out if you become PM.

  • DEATH BOND

    What is a death bond? Also known as a life bond, portfolio bond, executive bond, offshore bond – or, if you are a commission-based broker – an 8% commission bond.

    Who provides death bonds? The usual suspects (many of whom also provide ghastly long-term savings plans that ruin savers):

    Old Mutual InternationalRL360
    SEBLombard
    GeneraliHansard
    Friends ProvidentInvestors Trust

    Reasons to use a death bond:

    If you are a broker, and you have a client you hate and never want to see again, a death bond is an excellent product to use. Once your client realises you didn’t disclose the 8% (or sometimes 10%) commission you got paid, and that he is trapped in the useless, expensive bond for ten years, he will resent you forever. You can just pocket your commission and forget about the client because you’ll never see him again. Yes, he will complain about you, but you can just ignore him and eventually he will go away. He’ll find another adviser – who doesn’t drive nearly such a fancy car as you do – and try to find out how to undo some of the damage you have done. But it’s not your problem – you just concentrate on finding your next victim.

    More reasons to use a death bond:

    If you are an investor, and you want to get rid of your life savings as quickly as possible (perhaps you want to make sure your relatives don’t benefit from your hard work), a death bond is an excellent tool to use. The 8% (or 10%) commission your broker earned (and, remember, there’s a reason why there’s a “broke” in “broker”) will help make your fund go broke. (See!).

    The insurance company (or death office) will claw back your broker’s commission over the ten-year period and add on its own profit. So you could be paying 1.5% a year commission to the death office for the next ten years. If you take out some cash and reduce the balance of your death bond, you will still pay 1.5% a year on the original balance – thus hastening the death of your funds. Additionally, if your broker is gambling with your fund by investing in high risk crap like structured notes, “esoteric” assets, or expensive funds, any reductions in portfolio value will further increase the damage done by the death bond charges.

    Reasons not to use a death bond

    If you need a safe haven for your savings or pension, there are plenty of low-cost platforms that give you easy access to your funds. And you can leave any time you want – with no penalties. Your broker won’t earn his 8% or 10% commission – but he might, instead, agree some reasonable fees in a transparent and honest manner.

    Death bonds are, simply, bad for the health of your life savings. They lock you in for an unnecessary period of time; cost you high fees and redemption penalties; give you no protection from high-risk, toxic investments; and bugger up your retirement planning.

    If you access your funds for any reason, you will still be charged the same fees as you were paying on the original amount. Pretty soon, 1.5% a year can become 5% a year as your fund decreases. We have quite a few tragic examples of an entire fund getting wiped out due to a combination of the high fees and investment failures.

    Death offices such as OMI, SEB, Generali, RL360, Friends Provident etc., facilitate and encourage financial crime. The way death bonds are sold in Spain is illegal, and yet all the leading brokers are still flogging them. And this is not my opinion: the Spanish insurance regulator has ruled that all insurance products must be sold in accordance with the regulations – which, in Spain, are treated as laws (and not as optional dress at a party). So when I say “illegal” I do mean: criminal offence – i.e. handcuffs, prison, the works.

    So why would you want your life savings stored in a death bond provided by the likes of OMI – when you know that they have been part of widespread crime during the past ten years?

    Death bonds - aka life bonds (offshore bonds/portfolio bonds) by OMI, SEB, Generali, RL360, Friends Provident International and the like, are responsible for the destruction of millions of pounds' worth of life savings. And lives.
  • 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):

     

     

  • Lack of knowledge leads to loss of funds – rogue advisers

    Lack of knowledge leads to loss of funds – rogue advisers

    Pension Life Bog - Lack of knowledge leads to loss of funds - rogue advisersPension Life blog - Lack of knowledge leads to loss of funds - rogue advisersThe Pension Scams Industry Group (PSIG) has carried out a pilot survey on pension scams. The survey has identified seven key findings and concluded that most scams are carried out by rogue advisers and unregulated “introducers”. This is something we write about regularly, so it is great that PSIG has finally caught up.

    Henry Tapper wrote a blog about the survey, ‘Shining light on pension scams.‘ He wrote:

    “Another significant concern was member awareness of advice. PSIG stated, after they found in almost half (49 per cent) of cases, the member had limited understanding or appeared to be unaware who was providing the advice, the fees being charged, or the receiving scheme to which the transfer would be made.”

     

    A lack of understanding of the way the financial industry works is something that the scammers play on.

    Pension Life blog - Lack of knowledge leads to loss of funds - rogue advisers

    Many of our blogs here at Pension Life focus on getting information across to the public. You owe it to yourself to understand how the pension system works. This understanding will empower you and your money, protecting it from the scammers. We provide the platform for this information, you just need to read it.

    However, time and time again we find we hit brick walls when sharing information.

    Our blogs are shared on lots of social media networks. I find in many cases – especially on Facebook – that the links to our blogs will get deleted after the admins refuse to approve them. Some readers state that the blogs we write about expat scams are not relevant to expat issues.

    We have been told that our blogs which highlight what questions to ask your adviser are of a commercial and marketing nature. Yet in none of our blogs do we try to sell anything – we just offer knowledge and warnings about how to safeguard your pension.

    When met with this negativity, how do we get the information out there? How do we educate the public?

    Future unaware victims need to know what to look out for and how to avoid a scam. Otherwise, the cycle will continue. The scammers will outsmart the public and they will continue to get rich off the ignorance of the public. And the victims will continue to see their life savings vanish.

    As the saying goes, “ignorance is bliss”. However, if the ignorance leads to you signing your life savings over to a rogue financial adviser – whose only interest is purloining as much of your fund as possible – ignorance is in fact negligence.

    Pension Life blog - Lack of knowledge leads to loss of funds - rogue advisersYou may think you can trust a financial adviser, but we live in a world full of scammers and crooks – quite a few of which are financial advisers. Some of them are very greedy and will stop at nothing to fatten their bank balance at your expense. They have no conscience when it comes to living a lavish lifestyle funded from another’s grim fate.

    At school, they teach us about history, geography, maths and more. There is no subject about how to look after your money. Basic education on how to look after our pennies or how to finance our future is not included in the curriculum.

    Knowledge is important when it comes to your finances.

    I can honestly say that before I started this job, I knew very little about pensions and how they work. I simply knew that a pension was something you get when you are ‘old’.

    But ‘old’ comes round too quickly. Whilst working hard, building, saving and living your life. Time flies by.

    It is all too easy for a rogue adviser to contact you out of the blue about a

    “free pension review” and lure you into a scam.

    At Pension Life, we are dedicating our time and words to help educate and inform you about pensions. Our blogs are full of information about scams, what questions to ask when transferring your pension and how to avoid falling victim to a scam.

    Make sure you know what questions to ask your IFA.

    Above all else – safeguard your pension from the scammers.

    Don’t spend your life saving for your future, just to let a rogue adviser snatch it away and spend it on theirs.

    We have put together ten essential standards that we believe every financial adviser and their firm should adhere to. Make sure you read the blog and ensure your financial adviser can meet these standards. If he can´t – find one that can.