Tag: Premier New Earth Recycling

London Capital & Finance collapses

Another high-risk investment fund goes belly up. London Capital & Finance (LCF) has gone into administration, not long after taking a whopping £236m of investments – much of which was from first-time investors. It is thought that 12,000 investors have been financially ruined.

This tragic news comes as plans are being drawn up to take recovery action for the victims of three other failed funds: Axiom with £120m worth of investors’ funds (£30m of which was with life offices FPI and OMI); LM £456m (£90m with FPI and OMI); and Premier New Earth £207m (£62m with FPI and OMI).

With so many millions having been lost between LCF, Axiom, LM and NERR – well over one billion pounds – this does beg the question as to when regulators are going to take some effective action to restrict the promotion of such funds to retail investors. Because, without the active and highly-efficient marketing machine which operates so successfully in so many jurisdictions, these no-hoper funds would never get off the ground. But, of course, they pay fat commissions to the introducers and brokers who peddle them. So, obviously, exposing naive-investor clients to high-risk funds was very profitable.

This also begs the question as to why the success of such dreadful funds continues to flourish – and why trustees and life offices continue to offer/accept them. Certainly, life offices have a great deal to answer for when it comes to doing due diligence on start-up funds with no decent provenance or evidence that they have even the tiniest chance of succeeding.

The London Capital & Finance investment bond was touted as a “Fixed-Rate ISA”, with promises of 8% returns over a fixed term of three years. BBC News reported on the collapse and stated that “Administrators said investors could get as little as 20% of their money back.” Read the full report.

What is interesting in this case, is that the promoters – a Brighton-based firm called Surge PLC – are the same marketing firm that Blackmore Global used to promote their very expensive Blackmore Global Bond. Another high-risk and expensive investment bond, that up until recently failed to be transparent about the costs involved in the investment.

It is thought that LCF paid Surge PLC some £60m to run their marketing campaign, which amounts to a commission of about 25%! Surge ran a series of marketing campaigns comparing the bonds from LCF to high-street bonds, promising consumers an 8% return. Comparison websites put LCF at the top of the retail market for bond investments and did not highlight the high risk of the bond.

These ads were pulled by the FCA, due to LCF being regulated and authorised to provide consumer financial advice ONLY. They were not regulated for the sale of bonds or ISAs. It has also been found that the comparison websites were not independent, but rather had a connection to Surge PLC and are also owned by Paul Careless – we have mentioned Paul Careless in other blogs: he is the Director of Surge PLC and seems to be one of the only parties involved in these high-risk investments to be making any profits!

As with so many high-risk unregulated investments like this, the age-old question is, “Where did the money invested into LCF´s bond go?”

We know that LCF paid Surge that huge commission fee, and this then meant returns of up to 44% would be required in order for LCF to make good on its promises. Even in a great investment, this is an unbelievably high return and totally unrealistic.

Once the investments had been completed, the money was then ‘loaned’ out to twelve other companies, and some of these companies then sub-loaned the money. There are concerns that the companies who received these ‘loans’ have a connection to the directors of London Capital & Finance. Many of the firms were very new and four of them have never filed any accounts!

Michael Andrew Thomson, known as Andy Thomson, took over as the boss of LCF in 2015 and is also director of horse riding company GT Eventing. He and Careless are under investigation over the mis-selling of this bond and their connection to the other companies invested in. However, Careless claims he has only carried out marketing practices that were requested of him and his 25% commission fee is in line with market averages.

BBC News spoke to Neil Liversidge – an IFA who came across the scheme back in 2015 and consequently wrote to the FCA to warn them about the connections and possible mis-selling of the investment.

Mr Liversidge said: “The way it was promoted, a great many people could have fallen for this. A client brought it to us, but when we looked into it there was a lot of interconnection between the people they were lending to and the management of LCF themselves. We warned our clients off and the same day we wrote to the regulator raising our concerns about the promotion.”

Mr Liversidge, of course, was proved to be absolutely right. But, unfortunately, it took the FCA a further three years to shut the bond down, which ended up with 11,605 victims investing £236m in LCF’s bond. Investigations show that recovery is likely to be as low as 20% of the initial investments made.

Whilst the investigation goes forward, there have been no promises of compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

BBC News reported:

“The FCA findings included that LCF’s bonds did not qualify to be held in an ISA account and therefore investors were being misled by being told the interest they earned would be tax free.

The FCA said it was “unlikely” investors of London City & Finance would be protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) but it was “for the FSCS to determine”.”

Yet again we see unregulated investments being mis-marketed, to innocent retail investors – and the high risks being masked by promises of high returns. With high commissions – also masked – lining the pockets of the introducers, these toxic investments only make those who receive the commissions any profit. The victims, again and again, lose their hard-earned savings and there is little that they can do to recover them without expensive litigation.

For more on this story listen to BBC Moneybox by clicking here.

March 21, 2019
Vueling v Old Mutual International

Intro written by Kim: ‘This week Angie travelled for work (yet again): she had to fly from Granada to Barcelona. Disaster struck – her baggage sadly did not make the full journey -it’s sitting in the triangle of lost luggage no doubt. The airline – Vueling – whilst only providing the flight, was still happy to take responsibility for the loss of her bag and its contents, and compensate her. That got her thinking: if an airline can take full responsibility for a loss, why are life offices like OMI turning a blind eye to the massive losses they have caused to thousands of pension scam victims’ funds?

Over to Angie:

The financial services industry (especially offshore) has a lot to learn from the airline industry. Aviation stakeholders internationally provide the highest possible levels of safety for air travellers. This due diligence is constantly reviewed, updated and improved. The same standard of responsibility routinely happens in all jurisdictions. Regulators, as well as air crash investigators, work together when things go right. As well as when they don’t.

The work of the air industry regulators, investigators and safety trainers never ceases with all parties constantly striving to maintain the highest possible standards of performance and safety. And when something goes wrong, everybody swings into action like the A-team, International Rescue and Tom Cruise combined.

I know all this because one of my members is a Captain with a well-known airline (probably quite easy to guess which one!). He also trains pilots from a variety of other airlines in simulators – and this includes Vueling pilots. I will call him Captain BJ.

BJ is a thoroughly decent bloke and has a rather endearing fondness for chickens. He has devoted his professional life to the business of safety in travel. And behind him is a comprehensive and robust system of regulation – internationally. Financial services regulators, on the other hand, stand by and watch (with their hands firmly in their pockets – and their fingers compulsively searching for something with which to fiddle) as the equivalent of hundreds of passenger planes crash every month. The regulators stare blankly at the charred remains of the passengers’ life savings and shrug carelessly at the huge scale of human misery caused so routinely. With such flaccid regulatory regimes in so many jurisdictions, these chocolate-teapot regulators de facto facilitate and encourage losses caused by negligence and scams.

I know all this because Captain BJ is also a pension scam victim – courtesy of Stephen Ward’s Ark £27 million pension scam. Despite the extreme stress of losing his pension, he has to keep a stiff upper lip and continue with his daily routine of flying thousands of passengers safely around the skies of Europe.

My recent experience on a Vueling flight provides an interesting parallel with the “financial services” provided by Old Mutual International. Vueling sells flights. They provide the aircraft; the pilots and the cabin crew. They offer a selection of routes, food and drink, duty free goods, toilets and the expertise to get many thousands of passengers from one destination to another safely and on time; day after day after day.

What Vueling doesn’t do is operate a baggage handling service – this is provided by the airport you travel through. However, no matter how enjoyable a flight has been (if such a thing is possible!) and how punctual the take-off and landing are, the whole experience can be badly marred by the loss of a passenger’s luggage. While Vueling is responsible for the safety of the passengers, it is NOT responsible for the safety of the passengers’ luggage when it is not in the bowels of the aircraft. However, Vueling goes to extraordinary lengths to help people whose luggage has been delayed or lost. Vueling take full responsibility for a loss of luggage, luckily for me.

Earlier this week, it was the baggage handlers at either Granada airport or Barcelona airport who were responsible for my medium-sized, black, tatty suitcase. And they lost it. The case had been full of clothing typically worn by a slightly fat, grey-haired woman on the wrong side of something ending in a nought. So no desirable or valuable designer totty wear, expensive perfume or sparkly jewellery.

But Vueling provide people like me (who end up wearing the same orange jumper and purple socks two days in a row) with an easy to use, online complaints and redress facility. It wasn’t Vueling’s fault that my luggage got lost, but they take responsibility for it anyway because it is part of the whole flight “package”.

Contrast this with Old Mutual International (OMI) and the IoM regulator. And thank your lucky stars that they don’t try to run an airline (because if they did, it is unlikely any passengers or luggage would ever survive). OMI provides “insurance bonds” or bogus life assurance policies. These products serve no purpose except to pay fat commissions to rogue IFAs. And they feature a selection of risky investment products for the IFAs to earn even more commission. What OMI does not provide is financial advice – that is the job of someone else (i.e. the IFAs). But when the IFAs do the equivalent of losing the baggage, OMI takes no interest or responsibility other than to record the loss.

In the air industry, there are two things that can go wrong that can cause customers financial damage: flight delays and loss of luggage. A comprehensive complaints and redress system is routinely provided by all leading airlines. In the financial services industry, there are two things that can go wrong that can cause customers financial damage: investment failures and disproportionately high charges. No complaints and redress system is provided by life offices such as OMI and no one takes full responsibility for a loss.

If an airline experiences a crash, a huge machine swings into action to investigate the cause and take immediate remedial action to prevent the same or similar event from ever causing another accident. If a life office such as OMI experiences a crash, it pretends nothing has happened. Pension scam victims? No pension scam victims here! OMI denies all responsibility. And blames the IFA. Or the weather. Or Brexit. And keeps charging the victims the same disproportionately high fees based on the huge commissions they originally paid to the IFA that caused the crash.

Here are some examples of OMI’s crashes in the past six years:

* Axiom Litigation Fund – this was a PROFESSIONAL-INVESTOR-ONLY fund which was routinely used by rogue IFAs for ordinary, retail investors (and from which the IFAs earned fat commissions). OMI offered the Axiom fund on the bogus “life assurance” platform. And when the fund went into administration in December 2012, OMI shrugged its shoulders and said “not our problem“. And kept charging the victims the same fees as if the £120 million loss hadn’t happened.

OMI knew that many of the IFAs had been neither regulated nor qualified and that the investors were unsophisticated, low-risk, retail customers.

* LM Australian Property Fund – this was a PROFESSIONAL-INVESTOR-ONLY fund which was routinely used by rogue IFAs for ordinary, retail investors (and from which the IFAs earned fat commissions). OMI offered the LM fund on the bogus “life assurance” platform. And when the fund went into administration in March 2013, OMI shrugged its shoulders and said “not our problem“. And kept charging the victims the same fees as if the £240 million loss hadn’t happened.

OMI knew that many of the IFAs had been neither regulated nor qualified and that the investors were unsophisticated, low-risk, retail customers.

* Premier New Earth Recycling Fund – this was a PROFESSIONAL-INVESTOR-ONLY fund which was routinely used by rogue IFAs for ordinary, retail investors (and from which the IFAs earned fat commissions). OMI offered the PNER fund on the bogus “life assurance” platform. And when the fund went into administration in June 2016, OMI shrugged its shoulders and said “not our problem“. And kept charging the victims the same fees as if the £800 million loss hadn’t happened.

OMI knew that many of the IFAs had been neither regulated nor qualified and that the investors were unsophisticated, low-risk, retail customers. That is £1.16 billion worth of fund losses in just over six years, but they take no responsibility for loss of funds and the pension scam victim gets no redress.

(Note – if you read the above three examples, you will see that although the funds, dates and amounts were different, the circumstances were EXACTLY the same!)

Add to this the £ billions lost through toxic, risky structured notes, and that adds up to quite a cricket score that OMI “wasn’t responsible for“.

The causes were all the same:

UNREGULATED ADVISORY FIRMS

UNQUALIFIED ADVISERS

FUNDS OFFERING HUGE COMMISSIONS

FUNDS SUITABLE FOR HIGH-RISK, PROFESSIONAL INVESTORS SOLD TO LOW-RISK, RETAIL INVESTORS

NO DUE DILIGENCE BY OMI

We know that OMI bought:

£200 million worth of failed Leonteq structured notes

between 2012 and 2016 as OMI is claiming to be suing Leonteq. But this does little to distract attention from OMI’s multiple, long-term failures for allowing such toxic investments in the first place and causing many people to become pension scam victims.

If I give my car keys to someone who is so drunk they can barely stand up – and certainly can’t spell either OMI or IOM – and there is a serious accident, whose fault is it? The drunk’s or mine?

OMI’s CEO is a bloke called Peter Kenny who used to work for the IoM regulator. So he should know better. But he doesn’t. So we must assume he would be happy to hand his car keys over to a drunk or let an unqualified pilot fly a plane with a broken wing. And he would still claim it wasn’t his fault, despite the number of pension scam victims.

The moral of this blog is: never wear orange and purple on a flight; never use an OMI life bond; always use a qualified, regulated and insured IFA. Don’t become the next pension scam victim.

My next dilemma is what to buy with my Vueling compensation. I feel a trip to Marks and Sparks coming on. (I needed a bigger size anyway!).

(Huge thanks to Captain BJ – to whom I owe my sanity).

PS – since we wrote and published this blog, my luggage has been found. Apparently, it never left Granada airport. I suspect somebody pinched it – then found the clothes inside were so dull that they didn’t think it was worth taking it after all.

CWM Pension scam – A victim’s reconstruction

January 17, 2019
10 essential questions to ask an IFA
Most victims of pension and investment scams bitterly regret not having asked more questions with regards to their financial planning. The problem is that they wouldn’t have known what questions to ask, and they probably wouldn’t have understood the answers even if they had. Pension Life offer you 10 essential questions to ask an IFA so you can ensure you are not the next victim.

All existing victims wish they had asked questions, obtained assurances, checked advisers’ qualifications and regulation. But, of course, it is now too late for the victims who have lost part or all of their life savings.

These victims all agree that it is important to prevent future victims. This is why we have come up with these 10 essential questions to ask an IFA, when considering financial planning and the transfer of your pension:

1 – How is the adviser and/or his firm licensed to provide advice to you in the jurisdiction where you – the client – live? Don’t be fobbed off with the answer that the adviser has an insurance license – that isn’t enough. The adviser needs an investment license. Also, don’t be fobbed off if the adviser says the firm is licensed in another jurisdiction – it needs to be licensed for where you, the client, live.

2 – If you are transferring a DB (defined benefit) or FS (final salary) scheme, you must get FCA regulated, qualified, independent advice on the merits of the transfer. Remember, the advice might be that you are better off leaving your pension where it is.

3 – Make sure the transfer recommendation (from a DB or FS scheme) is correct. Get a second opinion. You only get to do this once – and if the wrong road is chosen, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to correct it.

Check that the transfer advice report makes it clear that you, the client, are being advised on the transfer and that the advice is about what you should do – not what you could do.

4 – Don’t let the adviser put you into an insurance bond. Examples of these are Old Mutual International, SEB, Generali, Friends Provident, RL360, Hansard, Investors Trust. An insurance bond is a wrapper. A QROPS is a wrapper. You don’t need two wrappers. That’s like Superman wearing two pairs of pants over his tights.

The only purpose an insurance bond serves is to pay the IFA 8% commission. Plus, the insurance bond will tie you in for between five and ten years, and you neither need nor want to do that with a pension.

Insurance companies will take business from any old unlicensed, unqualified scammers. They don’t care. The quarterly charges are called “management charges” but that is very misleading because they don’t do any actual managing. Once the value of your fund starts to diminish because of the high charges and the toxic, illiquid, high-risk investments, the insurance company will keep taking its fees – sometimes until the whole fund is extinguished and worthless.

5 – What qualifications does the adviser have?

You wouldn’t take medical advice from an unqualified person posing as a doctor; legal advice from an unqualified person posing as a solicitor or accountancy advice from a person posing as an accountant. So why take financial adviser from someone with no qualifications?

It is a sad fact that in many jurisdictions, so-called advisers spring up with no qualifications and even no Financial Panning experience. Sometimes, they had been selling mortgages, second-hand cars or ice cream the previous week to selling pensions.

Pension Life covered the question of qualifications in a recent blog by Kim:

Using advice from Chartered Global about financial qualifications, you can discover that:
Level 3 Financial Adviser Qualifications

The most basic or entrance tier is the certificate level which is classed as a level 3 qualification within the UK framework, equivalent to A levels. Level 3 qualifications include:

CertCII: Certificate in Financial Planning issued by the Chartered Insurance Institute

CertPFS: Certificate in Financial Planning issued by the Personal Finance Society

CeFA: Certificate in Financial Advice issued by the Institute of Financial Services

Cert IM: Certificate in Investment Management issued by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment

Level 3 qualifications are sometimes held by adviser office staff and certain mortgage or protection advisers in a bank for example. These certificates require passing a selection of exams over 1-2 years and holders will have a general grounding in financial planning and financial services.
Level 4 Financial Adviser Qualifications

However, since 2012 financial advisers in the UK have been required to hold a minimum of a level 4 qualification to be able to continue to provide independent financial planning advice. The minimum required qualification to provide independent financial planning advice in the UK is now the diploma level, a level 4 professional qualification.

Look for the following letters or designations to identify a level 4 adviser:

DipCII: Diploma in Financial Planning issued by the CII

DipPFS: Diploma in Financial Planning issued by the PFS

DipFA: Diploma in Financial Advice issued by the IFS

IAD: Investment Advice Diploma issued by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment

Building on the certificate knowledge, level 4 advisers will offer a well-rounded understanding of financial planning and products, from general investments, structured products, to basic pension, protection, tax and savings advice.
Level 6 Financial Adviser Qualifications

A full two levels higher are the profession’s top tier of financial advisers; holders of level 6 qualifications equivalent to a bachelor honours degree. Completing a comprehensive suite of professional exams over many years, these top-flight advisers will be designated through one of the following:

APFS: Advanced Diploma in Financial Planning issued by the CII

CFPCM: Certified Financial Planner

Adv DipFA: Advanced Diploma in Financial Advice issued by the IFS

Advisers at this level will have advanced expertise in the main areas of general financial planning.
6 – Is the adviser planning on investing your life savings in professional-investor-only structured notes?

Structured notes are complex, risky, expensive derivatives which are only suitable for sophisticated investors who understand them. Few advisers/brokers understand them – but love them because of the very high commissions they pay. They also love them because once they have purchased them, there is no management to do – only stand back and watch them plummet in value.

Examples of structured note providers are Leonteq (currently being sued by Old Mutual International for fraud), Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada and Nomura. There are, of course, many more out there.

However, if your adviser/broker says he wants to invest part of your life savings in structured notes – ignore any old baloney about “capital protection” – and RUN LIKE HELL!

7 – Why are the firm’s own in-house funds used? An adviser can’t be independent if he is recommending his own firm’s own funds.

The way that financial advice is supposed to work is the adviser does a thorough, detailed fact find to analyse the client’s individual circumstances and risk profile. Then the adviser can go out into the market and find the most suitable and cost-effective investment products.

There is a huge choice and many good low-cost investment platforms. But some firms set up their “own” funds – which are merely somebody else’s fund which has been “white labelled” as the firm’s fund. This means there are two layers of charges.

An adviser cannot be independent if he is advising that his own fund should be the investment choice. This recommendation is usually made because of the extra commission which can be earned from an in-house fund, rather than because it is in the client’s best interests.

8 – Are UCIS funds going to be used?

Many a poor victim has lived to regret his trust and faith in a silver-tongued adviser’s ability to manage his investments. UCIS funds (Unregulated, collective investment schemes) are inevitably high risk and can have catastrophic results.

Such funds include EEA Life Settlements, LM, Harlequin, Brandeaux Student Accommodation, Premier New Earth Recycling, Dolphin Trust and many more which are sometimes no more than Ponzi schemes. Underlying assets include forestry, “clean” energy, eucalyptus and truffle-tree plantations, chia seeds, fine art, wines and speculative property.

Life savings have been decimated by failed UCIS funds – make sure your adviser/broker understands you don’t want your money to be invested in any of these toxic, high-risk, unregulated funds. You could well be promised high returns, but you have to remember that with high returns comes high risk.

9 – What is the full extent of the charges/fees/commissions on the entire transaction?

So many advisers conceal the full extent of ALL the fees and commissions. Victims only find out about them long after it is way too late. The “drag” on a fund can be catastrophic, even without investment losses.

If you are being advised to go into a QROPS, there will be the set-up and yearly ongoing charge (as well as exit charge); the adviser will charge between 2% and 3% set-up and then 1% (at least) annually; if UCIS funds are used, these can pay up to 25% commission (or even more sometimes); if structured notes are used, these can pay between 6% (for the regular ones) and 8% (for the fraudulent Leonteq ones). Then there is the 8% on the insurance bond. Then there is anything else the adviser can slip in without you noticing.

Victims of poor advice often only notice the dragging effect of all these charges on their fund after a year or so – or more. And by then it is too late, and the fund can never recover.

10 – Why were you graded as a “7” balanced investor – or even higher as an “adventurous” investor (when, clearly, you should have been graded as a low-risk investor)?

Here is the basic problem – the higher an investor’s risk profile is, the riskier the investments can be. This, of course, means that the riskier the investments are, the more commission the adviser can make.

After suffering crippling losses, many victims (retrospectively) look at their statements and documentation and find that they were graded as medium or high risk without their knowledge or consent. The adviser’s excuse is that the client valued growth above all else and that this was reflected in the risk assessment questionnaire.

Often, clients start off as low to medium risk, and then the adviser surreptitiously increases the risk profile. This can have catastrophic consequences for investors – and is what ALL of the known victims report as being the cause of their crippling losses.

The bottom line is that the public needs to be educated and warned about the bad practices offshore. Only by spreading the word about what happened to existing victims, will future victims be prevented.

People who have lost part – or all – of their pensions and life savings, are devastated and destroyed. They are facing potential poverty in retirement. Some will lose their homes, their health and their relationships. Some will take their own lives.
June 25, 2018
Holborn Assets Johannesburg – Damaging more life savings?

EXCLUSIVE: Holborn Assets opens new office in South Africa. Oh, how wonderful for them! However, not so wonderful for the new victims Holborn will obviously be trying to scam into losing large percentages of their pension funds.

None of the existing victims have received compensation yet for their crippling losses due to expensive insurance bonds, high-risk, professional-investor-only structured notes, and even higher-risk UCIS funds such as New Earth Recycling. And yet Holborn Assets appear to have plenty of spare cash to open a new office in Johannesburg. This new venture will be led by Lourens Reichert and will apparently employ an eight-strong team of advisers. Seems Holborn Assets is now set to exploit this new market and will, of course, have no trouble finding plenty of new victims and relieving them of their pension savings.

Bob Parker, Holborn Assets’ CEO and founder, said: “South Africa is full of potential. There’s an enormous amount of capital held by residents outside of the country and Lourens and his team are experts in advising clients on how to manage that for maximum growth and efficiency.”

You can almost hear Bob Parker smacking his lips and rubbing his hands with glee as he is already counting the enormous amount of money he is going to make out of scamming more victims.

If you are new to Holborn Assets here is a bit of background information on them. The outfit is based in various locations including Dubai, Saudi and Kuala Lumpur, as well as the UK and run by various Parkers: Simon, Bob, James etc. They have used mass cold-calling techniques to lure in victims and place their pension funds into high-risk, toxic investments – that pay maximum commissions.

Holborn Assets’ past victims have seen heavy losses to their pensions due to negligent, unregulated, unqualified advice into entirely inappropriate, high-risk, illiquid assets. This includes one victim’s $600k life savings – half of which were invested in New Earth Recycling (which, of course, was paying the best investment introduction commissions at the time).

Not only is Holborn Assets in the habit of destroying pension funds, the firm also has no shame in who they stick on their payroll. Take Paul Reynolds, who was banned by the FCA and fined nearly £300,000 for giving unsuitable and misleading financial advice, yet Bob Parker of Holborn Assets Dubai welcomed him with open arms. Holborn Assets also employed Darin Brownlee-Jones: the “Champagne Killer“. A drunk hit-and-run driver who killed an innocent man then walked away to drink champagne.

Bob Parker is clearly a man whose conscience bothers him not one bit after failing to compensate victims. He has the astonishing audacity to have his own page on his website to warn people about scammers!

And now Holborn Assets has employed Lourens Reichert, to be the face of Holborn Assets Johannesburg. Reichert has reportedly said “Holborn has a great reputation for its integrity, professionalism and for supporting its staff and investing in them and the business. It is also going in a really exciting direction and it’s great to join the company when it is on such a growth track.”

He obviously hasn’t done much research on the company he now works for and represents. Or did the whopping “golden handshake” he received from Bob Parker make him turn a blind eye to the grubby goings on inside Holborn Assets?

Reichert has apparently stated:

“Coming to Holborn gives my team and I the opportunity to grow the business even further. The first priority will be within South Africa and then we will explore the many opportunities that exist for providing specialist advice across the African continent.”

But Reichert has said nothing of repairing the damage done to so many victims and Holborn Assets’ failure to compensate them. Is Reichert really so blind? Or is he just greedy, selfish and heartless – willing to go on and do to more victims what Holborn Assets has already done to so many?

All that’s left to say then is “Look out South Africa!” If any South African residents get cold called by Reichert and his merry men, just tell them to hop it.

**************************************************************

As always, Pension Life would like to remind you that if you are planning to transfer any pension funds, make sure that you are transferring into a legitimate scheme. To find out how to avoid being scammed, please see our blog:

What is a pension scam?

FOLLOW PENSION LIFE ON TWITTER TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS PENSION RELATED, GOOD AND BAD.

April 18, 2018
HOLBORN ASSETS – HEALTH WARNING

Holborn Assets Warning: their rogue advisers can seriously damage your life savings – and your life

Holborn Assets: This Toxic Dubai Firm Comes with a Health Warning

Holborn Assets can seriously damage your life savings – and indeed your health and even life.

Holborn Assets does have a few decent advisers. When I published the “Champagne Killer” blog last week, I was contacted by over a dozen advisers who asked me (courteously and respectfully) to remove their names and profile links from the blog. This I did immediately in all cases except Gerard Frew who was simply rude and abusive.

Quite a few of these advisers had had no idea they worked in such a cess pit. None of them seemed to have had any idea about Paul Reynolds and Darin Brownlee-Jones. They appeared unaware that the FCA had ruled both individuals unsuitable to be financial advisers. And they didn’t seem to know that some advisers at Holborn Assets are routinely destroying victims’ life savings – and Bob Parker simply shrugs the complaints off.

A couple of the “good guys” raised the point that if one person at Barclays had done something wrong, it did not necessarily mean that all the other staff at Barclays were rotten. A valid point, perhaps, but if there was a rotten apple at Barclays, they would get sacked – whereas Bob Parker deliberately goes out and picks rotten apples because they have no principles, no scruples, no hesitation in scamming people out of their pensions and investments. And they make Uncle Bob lots of money.

The advisers who contacted me claimed to have unblemished records (which they didn’t want to be besmirched by the likes of Reynolds and Brownlee-Jones). But the question is: if they have good records, what on earth are they doing working at Holborn Assets? If they care about their professional reputations, why not go and work for another firm which is not full of cowboys and run by a man who cares not a jot for the distress his firm causes to innocent victims.

Let’s have the drains up on how Holborn Assets really works and see how and why it is so “successful”.

HOLBORN ASSETS KUALA LUMPUR:

Holborn Assets has a team of about 50 “contact generators” based in Kuala Lumpur (where labour is cheap). They trawl social media for names and contact details.

The leads are passed to a company in the UK set up by Holborn Assets to run as a cold calling “boiler room”. They used to use a boiler room in Manchester for their cold calls, but now they’ve got their own: The Retirement Shop. The company was set up in September 2016 and has two directors: James Patrick Parker and John Cornelius Parker who was arrested and charged after extreme violence against fans and police at a football match in 2002. Presumably, they are relatives of Bob Parker – James lives in the UK and John in Dubai. In fact, when you call The Retirement Shop, James Parker answers the phone.

Holborn Assets’ cold calling boiler room, The Retirement Shop, has around 40 callers – mostly young, poorly-educated people desperate for work. Bob Parker pretends this company is in Bournemouth, but it is actually based in Sale, Cheshire. The cold callers basically bombard people throughout the UK and offshore with calls designed to book a telephone call and/or meeting appointments with Holborn Assets advisers.

Bob Parker is enthusiastic about this “lead generation” scam as the cold calls come from a UK number, so it’s less likely the potential victims are going to drop the call. Holborn Assets also uses a voice-over IT system that can change the number so that victims in – say – Saudi will see a Saudi number come up even though the call is actually coming from the UK.

Holborn Assets openly admits to doing cold calling in Saudi but in Dubai Bob Parker wants to conceal the company’s cold calling operation so he pretends the calls come from an allegedly entirely separate and independent company (The Retirement Shop) – which is, of course, controlled and run by Bob Parker himself. This is what Parker calls “warm calling”.

The way that Holborn Assets’ cold (or warm) calling operation works is that they have 16 to 20 year olds calling from The Retirement Shop to potential victims in the UK or anywhere in the world. Working from a prepared script, the caller asks the person if they’ve got a pension, and if they keep up to date with it. The caller is instructed to tell the victims the company works alongside HMRC, then to ask them loads of questions such as whether they know about legislative changes. Then the caller says he will get a “specialist” to call – so the lead is now “warmed up”. Bob Parker thinks this is “quite clever really”.

How does The Retirement Shop “package” itself? The company claims that: “We have assisted thousands of clients all over the world to transfer their frozen UK pensions and plan for their retirement. To date, we have helped successfully transfer over 500 million Pounds worth of frozen UK pensions. We are amongst the best at what we do.” But as the company was only registered in September 2016, how can it possibly have “assisted thousands” of clients since then? But the thought of Holborn Assets handling £500m worth of pension transfers is utterly blood curdling.

The Retirement Shop‘s website further claims to be “UK Qualified”, “Experts in UK Tax Law”, have “Knowledge in UK Pension Transfers” and “We also link you up with UK qualified pension specialists across the globe”. In fact, none of these claims is true – especially the last one as the only “pension specialists” they link people up with are those at Holborn Assets Dubai. And that firm is not licensed to provide advice in many jurisdictions.

Holborn Assets rogue advisers can wipe out at least half your life savings in a heartbeat.

Having been cold called and “warmed up” by Holborn Assets’ boiler room scammers, what sort of investment advice is the victim likely to receive? Various victims have seen heavy losses due to negligent, unregulated, unqualified advice into entirely inappropriate, high-risk, illiquid assets. This includes one victim’s $600k life savings – half of which were invested in New Earth Recycling (which, of course, was paying the best investment introduction commissions).

So why would decent, ethical, conscientious advisers choose to stay at Holborn Assets? Do they really want all this toxic, unethical practice to rub off on them? Do they want their leads to come from Bob Parker’s boiler room scammers in Kuala Lumpur and “Bournemouth”?

Lastly, why don’t they all get together and tie Bob Parker to a chair then slap him with a wet fish and a copy of the Bible until he agrees to pay proper compensation to the Holborn Assets victims?

July 24, 2017