Tag: PREMIER PENSION SOLUTIONS

FCA Investigates Ark and AES
The FCA seems to have woken up. It only took eleven years. Eleven years of laziness, torpor, disinterest and deliberately ignoring the problem. But, completely out of the blue, the FCA has suddenly got bored with crapping on bathroom floors and has decided to do a spot of rather belated regulating.

The object of this sudden fit of uncharacteristic activity, is the Ark pension scam. This was operated between 2010 and 2011 by a team of scammers. This team included so-called financial advisers, introducers, a pensions lawyer and an accountant. The principal architect of the six Ark schemes, however, was Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions in Spain. His Spanish firm specialised in (pretty much what it said on the tin) pensions. In particular pension transfers.

Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions

From August 2010, Ward’s company Premier Pension Solutions (PPS) was run as an agent of AES Financial Services – which was regulated by the FSA (now the FCA). Before this, Ward’s company was in the Inter-Alliance network in Cyprus. Coincidentally, the “sister” firm Continental Wealth Management (CWM) was also a member of the Inter-Alliance network. PPS and CWM worked together in close collaboration. CWM often did the cold calling and warm up act for Ward’s various pension scams – including the New Zealand Evergreen liberation scam.

An agency agreement was in place between Ward’s firm PPS and Sam Instone’s firm AES. But the agreement specifically excluded pension transfers. Which was pretty odd, bearing in mind pension transfers were PPS’ main activity. This resulted in Ward’s firm giving victims the false impression that the pension advice he provided was regulated. Which, of course, it wasn’t. The exclusion in the agency agreement between PPS and AES was, naturally, hidden from clients and victims.

Complaints directed at Ward about the various pension scams he had been operating over the years were always firmly rebutted. Ward always claimed that his own activities were the responsibility of AES as the regulated party – and that it was up to Instone to decide what PPS could and couldn’t do.

Kirsten Hastings from International Adviser has published some excerpts from the FCA’s questionnaire about Ark, PPS and AES:
- A questionnaire has been sent by the FCA to customers of AES Financial Services (which also traded as International Pension Transfer Specialists (IPTS), Premier Pension Solutions (PPS) and Premier Pension Transfers (PPT).
- These clients invested or transferred pensions into schemes managed by Ark Business Consulting and/or the Ark pension schemes.
- The questionnaire was sent to consumers to gather more information about their dealings with these firms.
- They have until 17 October to respond.
- Director of AES Sam Instone told IA: “We are absolutely certain AES Financial Services Ltd has never provided any advice at all in relation to Ark schemes, so it seems like a strange questionnaire.”
Sam Instone seems to have forgotten that AES Spain was run by rogue “adviser” Paul Clarke for some years – after leaving unlicensed firm CWM in 2010. Clarke advised several victims to transfer into Ark. And good old Sam himself advised his own Dad to transfer into Ark. I guess three destroyed pensions – with accompanying tax penalties – can be easy to forget?

Kirsten Hastings goes on to talk about the history of Stephen Ward’s Ark scam:
- In May 2011, Dalriada Trustees was appointed by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to take over schemes marketed by Ark Business Consulting.
- TPR took action following concerns that the Ark schemes were being used for pension liberation.
- According to Dalriada, such schemes generally have high charges and invest money in risky and esoteric vehicles.
- They also put members at risk of having to pay large sums of tax.
- The latest Dalriada update to members states it is “not able to place a value on any members’ benefits at the time and are therefore unable to make payments to members”.
Kirsten also mentions some further points in the FCA questionnaire:

Kirsten Hastings editor at International Adviser
- Did the client (Ark victim) approach the firm or vice versa?
- Where was the client based when these services were provided?
- Would clients be willing to sign a witness statement?
- What regulatory protections was the client told there were?
All Ark victims would certainly be more than happy to sign a witness statement to evidence what Stephen Ward, PPS and AES did, wrote, promised, assured and persuaded.

The regulatory protection, of course, for anyone advised by Stephen Ward’s Premier Pension Solutions (which was most of them) in the Ark scam, was Sam Instone’s AES Financial Services – according to all the documentation.

Ward promoted the Ark £27 million scam during 2010 and 2011 – cases being documented on PPS headed paper announcing that the firm was a “Partner” of AES and regulated through AES. Ward would have earned at least £1 million through the Ark scam – all of which would have been paid through AES.

When Ark went tits up, Ward launched his next pension liberation scam: Evergreen Retirement Benefits QROPS in New Zealand – with his accompanying 50% Marazion “loans”. Again, all advice was given on PPS headed paper announcing that the firm was an AES partner and regulated through AES. This meant another 300 victims lost more than £10 million worth of pensions. It also meant that PPS and AES between them earned at least £1 million from the scam (10% of transfer values). These fees were paid direct to AES.

When Evergreen collapsed (as all PPS pension scams eventually did) in 2012, Ward set up the Capita Oak scam. Another 300 people lost over £10 million – all invested in Store First store pods. Again, all pension transfers were done by Ward. Alongside Capita Oak, Ward carried out all the transfers for Henley (another 250 victims losing £8 million in Store First) and Westminster (another 79 victims losing £3.3 million in other toxic, high-commission investments). All these schemes are currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

Throughout this era – during which all business done by PPS went through AES – Ward ran multiple, multi-£million pension scams – mostly involving liberation fraud:
- Bollington Wood
- Capita Oak
- Dorrixo Alliance
- Endeavour QROPS
- Evergreen QROPS
- Feldspar
- Halkin
- Hammerley
- Headforte
- Henley Retirement Benefits
- London Quantum
- Southlands
- Randwick
- Randwick Estates
- Southern Star QROPS
- Superlife QROPS
The above list comprises QROPS which were used abusively, and bogus occupational schemes.

All these PPS scams resulted in many hundreds more victims losing millions of pounds’ worth of pensions. Many of these unfortunate people were also persuaded by Ward to liberate their pensions, and so they would have faced crippling tax penalties as well.

Ward’s final triumph in his long-running pension scam campaign was London Quantum. He proudly announced this scheme saying that “Ark is history” and that he was now going straight. Still trading as an AES partner and agent, Ward conned 100 victims into the London Quantum scheme. This was invested in the usual high-risk, high-commission and entirely inappropriate assets (including Dolphin Trust loans and car parking spaces at Park First Glasgow). London Quantum ended up being classified by Dalriada Trustees as being “probably worthless”.

In the Ark Pensions scam, it is clear why so many victims thought PPS was a properly-regulated firm – AS AN AGENT AND “PARTNER” OF AES:
“Premier Pension Solutions SL …..is an authorised agent of AES Financial Services Ltd authorised to conduct investment and insurance business. AN AES INTERNATIONAL PARTNER.“

In the subsequent £100 million Continental Wealth Management pension and investment scam, Ward continued to “advise” hundreds of victims to transfer their precious pensions into the hands of known scammers – in the full knowledge that their pensions would be invested in high-risk, high-commission rubbish funds and structured notes:

But Stephen Ward was a bit more than just an “agent” and “partner” of AES. He was also an integral part of the AES management team – and boasted that he was Director of International Pensions. When all the pension scams finally collapsed, leaving thousands destitute and desperate – as well as hounded by HMRC – Ward and Instone set up IPTS: International Pension Transfer Specialists. This new venture was run from Ward’s office in Moraira – although they tried to hide this by using a PO Box at nearby LettersRUs. And so the misery continued…..

Stephen Ward in the front row of the AES team of “experienced experts”.
September 24, 2021

CWM Criminal Case and Business Plan

As we reach the halfway point in the criminal trial of the Continental Wealth Management and Premier Pension Solutions companies, I regret I am unable to give a detailed update on the case at this point. The first half of the eight defendants have been cross examined by the judge’s lawyer, and the second batch of four further defendants are due to be cross examined on 7th April 2020 (in the Denia Court of First Instruction).

This, of course, assumes there is no disruption to the proceedings caused by the Corona virus lockdown.

The first “batch” consisted of Patrick Kirby – Darren Kirby’s brother – who ran the CWM cold calling operation which sent so many hundreds of victims to their doom; Anthony Downs; Dean Stogsdill and Neil Hathaway who had various different titles at different times – ranging from Managing Director to Operations Director to Investment Director.

I can’t comment on the transcripts of the questions and answers on 24th and 25th February, and won’t be able to publish the full details of all cross examinations until all the defendants have appeared before the judge. The defendants on 7th April will be:

Jody Smart – sole director and shareholder who paid herself over 1 million Euros in the last two years of the life of CWM – the money being paid into her two other businesses: property company Mercurio and fashion design company Jody Bell. In addition, she also paid money into her Grant A Wish “charity” and drew a hefty salary.
Paul Clarke – founder of the original CWM company in partnership with Darren Kirby; Clarke left a year later to run AES International Spain, where he scammed more victims out of their life savings with expensive, unnecessary, illegally-sold insurance bonds, and high-risk structured notes – all sold for the fat commissions (despite the even fatter losses suffered by the victims). He also advised two victims to go into Stephen Ward’s Ark scam. Clarke now runs a firm called Roebuck Wealth and has scrubbed the internet of all trace of his history.
Darren Kirby – founder along with Clarke and ultimate controller of the whole CWM operation throughout. Kirby made every attempt to divest himself of all legal responsibility for CWM. He gave away his shares in the company to his business/civil partner Jody Smart, and some of his employees. However, all the defendants (as well as victims) are bound to confirm Darren Kirby was the ultimate boss and controlling mind of the company.
Stephen Ward – owner of Premier Pension Solutions SL. He was the person who signed off all the CWM clients’ pension transfers (for a fat fee). He knowingly condemned all pension holders whose transfers he signed off to inevitable partial or total loss. He was fully aware of CWM’s modus operandi as he himself used a similar investment model to that of CWM (and had taught them how to do it). Ward was routinely investing his own clients’ funds in a toxic, disloyal and irresponsible manner which was as bad – and sometimes even worse – than in the CWM cases.

As soon as I can publish the cross examination transcripts and further directions, I will do so.

This landmark Continental Wealth Management criminal case will inevitably shine a much-needed spotlight on the issue of offshore financial services generally. CWM was just one example (albeit an extreme one) of an international financial services culture which generally disadvantages and/or defrauds consumers. The cause of this culture is a combination of the obsession with the insurance bond cartel: OMI, SEB, Generali, RL360 et al; the total reliance on (hidden) commission; the practice of churning (investing the same sum of money as often as possible to generate as much commission as possible) and the view that the client’s money and interests are secondary to the adviser’s.

CWM victims outside the Denia Criminal Court on 25.2.2020 waiting for Dean Stogsdill and Neil Hathaway to finish being questioned on charges of fraud, disloyal administration and falsification of commercial documents.

Most victims – whether parties to the criminal proceedings or not – are aware of the demise of CWM in September 2017. The company was slowly dying because of the number of victims the CWM scammers had ruined: the word was getting out (which was bad for business) so the victims who shouted loudest were getting paid off. This was having a seriously detrimental effect on CWM’s cashflow.

The financial strain on the business was, however, made even worse by the fact that every last bit of spare cash in the CWM bank account was being used to keep Jody Smart in houses, frilly frocks, shoes and champagne. In 2017, the CWM bank statements show 158,614 EUR was transferred into her Mercurio property company bank account, and 123,400 EUR into her Jody Bell fashion design company bank account. But this was significantly down on the previous year: 386,921 EUR to Mercurio and 164,000 EUR to Jody Bell. The year before, 2015, 124,500 EUR into Mercurio and 39,000.00 into Jody Bell fashion. That’s almost 1 million EUR in two years pocketed by Jody – not counting the money paid into her Grant A Wish “charity” and her generous “salary”.

During the same period, however, the revenue was at least 3,391,876.28 EUR in commissions from insurance bonds and structured notes. On top of this was a substantial amount of extra secret commission from the ultra-high-risk Leonteq structured notes, plus whatever Darren Kirby could con out of victims such as Mark Davison (who subsequently died penniless) and the other claimants pursuing Kirby and CWM through the criminal court in Denia in separate proceedings which pre-date our Pension Life proceedings.

Looking back to the dying days of CWM when cashflow was slowly grinding to a halt as the company was paying out compensation to some of the worst-affected victims (and any remaining cash was being spent by Jody Smart on first-class flights to New York and champagne in five-star hotels – despite her claim to be working 24/7 on her Grant A Wish charity), there was a plan to “reinvent” and re-launch CWM. It eventually dawned on the CWM scammers that they couldn’t scam enough new victims quickly enough to pay out all the existing victims – so the answer was to start afresh with a brand new approach. The new approach was essentially the same as the old approach – except they aimed to sell more “products” and ruin more victims.

The rest is history and CWM collapsed at the end of September 2017 – when all related parties withdrew terms of business. It is worth taking a careful look at the business plan which CWM had been intending to use to re-launch the business. This plan makes it clear that this was an unlicensed, insurance bond sales outfit which intended to continue to operate in contravention of the Spanish insurance regulations. If you read the plan carefully, you will see that CWM operating model was always based on a high-pressure sales target which ignored the interests of the clients (victims).

CWM’s promotion had always been centered around the iniquitous cold call – but in addition the business plan reveals that Jody Smart’s Grant A Wish “charity” events had been used to “harvest” potential victims at scamming sales parties posing as bona fide fundraising efforts.

Read the below CWM “Relaunch Business Plan” carefully and you will see how the scam works. If a victim transfers a £100,000 pension, it will fall in value in the hands of CWM to £91,976,000 by the end of year 1. This means the first year fees would have totalled £4,000 set up fee plus £1,000 annual management fee to CWM; £1,490 QROPS fee; £1,534 to fee OMI. It is interesting that Stogsdill has made the assumption in the plan that all clients will be put into an OMI bond – long before they’ve even met the client and found out if they actually need an insurance bond (which they never do as they are too expensive and lock investors in for up to ten years).

The CWM “plan” shows how a victim’s fund could recover back up to £97,495 if it grows by 6%. But this doesn’t take into account the investment costs of between 5% and 8% – so that was never going to happen. So Dean Stogsdill of CWM – despite all the lessons which should have been learned from years of destroying victims’ funds, still fully intended to keep on doing the same to as many new victims as possible.

Continental Wealth Management Business Plan 2017 (by Dean Stogsdill)

Continental Wealth Management is an independent financial advice firm specialising in wealth management advice to English speaking expatriates throughout Europe – this statement is the key to CWM’s future success.

CWM must focus on expanding our circle of influence and create new business through strategic placement of data gatherers. We must take on the business of “hard targets”, created to allow the best we have to flourish, whilst removing the weaker members of the team by natural selection. This is not a system for solely the sales force, but for all aspects of the team including call centre operators, administration and directors.

CWM will have clear defined roles within the sales force with the addition of achievable, measurable targets on top of generous salaries which is the cornerstone of our payroll ethos. The business will flow from our Partners meaning the business can be closed efficiently and serviced by an experienced adviser who is well trained, knowledgeable and most importantly a “hungry individual”.

There is a simple calculation on £100,000.00:

£100,000 invested over 6 years in capital protected products will provide £6,250.00 in gross revenue.

£100,000 invested over 6 years in a fund yielding 3% per annum growth will provide £10,690 in gross revenue.

BACKGROUND

CWM is a financial services company founded in 2007 on the Costa Blanca. It is a company specialising in pension transfers, portfolio bonds, offshore investments and single premium investments. It is a non-regulated company which is owned and operated by the directors / shareholders and founder Darren Kirby. Recent investors are Timothy Benjamin, and Mark Davison with share capital having been distributed amongst these investors.

Directors / Shareholders

Founder / Majority Shareholder – Darren Kirby

Chairman – Neil Hathaway

CEO – Dean Stogsdill

COO – Anthony Downs

Key Personnel

Darren Kirby – He brings a wealth of experience in financial services with a keen head for figures and sales techniques. He has a strong view on the business and how it should be perceived by the clients, while strengthening our position through strategic investment decisions along with powerful leadership skills.

Neil Hathaway – Decades of experience in insurance and wealth management, he brings a strong personality and great sales skills with the qualifications to match. He is a knowledgeable asset to the management of the sales force and uses his skills to bring through the less experienced members of the team.

Dean Stogsdill – Strong sales record and up to date qualifications – he can sell at the most technical level and has a strong grasp of the investment market, regulation and products. Strong views on company direction.

Anthony Downs – Organised, driven and a sales record to match. He drives through the issuing business and captures all revenues and commissions in the most efficient manner. Anthony is key to the efficient stream of payments required for this business model.

Directors: Re-structure 2017

Darren Kirby

The final decision maker as majority shareholder means critical decisions will fall to him. A mandate to find new investors and revenue streams for CWM. An ambassadorial role and a creative thinker for the company, bringing fresh ideas on many aspects of the business both operational and non-operational.

Neil Hathaway

Key point of contact for the sales force. A remit to push the sales force to meet targets and close business. He will be in control of sales, possible bond lists as well as monitoring the business / LOA levels for each adviser. He will also have a key role in writing new business. This will be a target driven management position. All advisers will report directly to him.

Dean Stogsdill

Complete oversight of the business operationally with a close working relationship with the Chairman and COO. I will manage the company direction and overall development planning, strategies and high level management with department heads reporting directly to me. I will chair board meetings and deal with technical and regulatory planning. I will also be heavily involved in the efficient management of the investment book.

Anthony Downs

Full control of new business. A remit to drive through the revenues from written business to maximize the cashflow of the company. Target driven with targets based on company income needs, outstanding requirements and business written.

With the current admin levels and management restructure we should be able to easily handle up to 7 bonds per week, plus client after care, outstanding requirements, investment and re-investment. We do not hire any more administration in 2017. Although this will be adjusted if business levels exceed 7 bonds per week.

We are now a company where you perform, meet your target or you are replaced.

Of the 9 bond writers, we have 1 in France, 1 in Turkey, 1 in Portugal and the other 6 are in Spain. I believe that we need to build up the business levels so that 9 bond writers can meet a target of 30 bonds per man for the year or an average of 3 a month, based on a 10 month / 40-week year. This would mean a company wide total of 270 bonds, at our target average of €10,000 commission per bond that would mean turnover of 2.7 million plus trail of €300,000 meaning a total of €3,000,000 for 2017.

Call Centres – Cold calling with appointments made and revenue generated through call centres and call centres paid for on performance only.

Market history:

Historically we have concentrated on cold calling, Grant A Wish (“charity”) events, web videos, website and referrals from existing clients. The cold calling aspect is becoming more and more difficult and time consuming and other areas of marketing ourselves and our products must be found.

Competition – Blevins Franks; DeVere; Abbey Financial; Spectrum; Blacktower

Our average case size of £100,000 has costs associated with it as follows:

Opening
	Initial Single Premium	100,000
	Total	100,000

Charges	CWM
	Initial CWM Set Up Charge	4,000	–
			–
	QROPS Set Up Charge and Annual Fee	1,490
	OMI Annual Management Charge	1,150
	CWM Annual Management Charge	1,000
	OMI Annual Administration Charge (paid Quarterly)	384
Total Expenses	8,024	3,354

	Net	91,976
	Estimated Growth 6%	5,519

Year End Balance	97,495	99,789


		–	–
		–	–
		–	–
		–	–

Balance on Fund	97,495	99,789

This gives us a year 1 price point of 8.02% and an ongoing of 3.3%.

March 18, 2020

Continental Wealth Management – “Plunder in paradise”

Victims of the Continental Wealth Management scam met Mail on Sunday's Laura Shannon in Denia in July 2019 — Victims of the Continental Wealth Management scam met Mail on Sunday’s Laura Shannon

Mail on Sunday’s Laura Shannon met a group of victims of the Continental Wealth Management scam in Denia in July 2019.

Here is a link to her excellent article Continental Wealth Management – “Plunder in paradise”: MAIL ON SUNDAY ARTICLE

All power to her, this young lady put all other would-be investigative journalists to shame. Laura jumped on a plane on 24th July 2019 when she and her editor heard about the Continental Wealth Management scandal. After a long, hot bus journey from Alicante airport, she got straight down to business. She spent all afternoon interviewing a large group of distressed investors. She then attended the memorial service for one victim who had been killed by the stress he suffered when he lost his pension – thanks to Continental Wealth Management’s Darren Kirby.

Laura Shannon – putting all other “investigative” journalists to shame

No other British journalist has bothered to do this. No other national newspaper has taken such an interest in this important story – about how British people have been scammed by British advisers in Europe’s leading expat destination.

Clearly shaken by the extent of the Continental Wealth Management scam, and the plight of the victims, Laura was deeply moved by the memorial service for victim Mark Davison who had died two weeks earlier. After a very long and tiring day, Laura retired to her hotel to write up her notes – ahead of another full day of meeting more victims.

So where had all the other so-called newspapers been all this time? Where were The Sun, The Times, The Telegraph, The Mirror, The Guardian, The Express? Too lazy – and clearly not concerned with this very British problem. These newspapers do indeed have some very fine journalists – but this widespread financial crime was too low on their priority list.

The financial press – such as International Adviser – is too conflicted with its promotion of the very company behind this scam: Old Mutual International.

On the second day of her visit, Laura Shannon met another group of Continental Wealth’s victims and also spoke to a couple in France by Skype. Her final interview with an elderly lady (who had tried to commit suicide when she lost most of her life savings to the Continental Wealth Management scammers) left her in tears.

At lunch time, Laura headed back to Alicante airport. Four and a half months pregnant, this energetic and passionate young woman returned to her office in Birmingham to write and file her story. She left little out and covered most of the basic points. Her article left the reader in no doubt: financial crime has flourished in Spain for years.

There are both criminal and civil actions ongoing now – on the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol. The days of unqualified “chiringuitos” and unlicensed firms are hopefully over. While Britain’s feeble excuse for a regulator – the FCA run by lazy loser Andrew Bailey – fails to take any meaningful action, the Spanish regulator has at least ruled that failing to comply with Spanish regulations is a criminal offence.

The Malta regulator has tightened up rules to help stop firms operating similar scams from abusing QROPS, and deploying inappropriate investment policies. Multiple class actions in various jurisdictions are taking legal action against rogue insurance companies – such as Old Mutual International – who have encouraged and profited from widespread financial crime.

Ward’s luxury development at 64 Calle Haya, Moraira, Alicante

And this is the problem: crime pays. Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions in Moraira is now adding to his ten mortgage-free luxury villa property portfolio in Florida by building a huge luxury villa next to his former office in Calle Haya in Moraira.

Paul Clarke – Darren Kirby’s former business partner (when Continental Wealth Management was first set up) has for years been seen zooming around the Costa Blanca in his Aston Martin. And Jody Smart (or Bell or Kirby) – Darren Kirby’s former girlfriend has boasted of the £13 million she earned as director of Continental Wealth Management.

Sipping champagne while publicising her fashion empire on Youtube

Jody now runs a swish ocean-front restaurant in Calpe with fiance Franco Pearson – seemingly untroubled by the appalling trail of devastation left behind her in the wake of the Continental Wealth Management tragedy.

But the millions made by the scammers at Continental Wealth Management pale into insignificance when compared to the fortunes made by life offices Old Mutual International, SEB and Generali.

Not a hint of regret for OMI’s actions – or shame at his broken promises.

Peter Kenny did promise to pay compensation to OMI’s victims. But this was just a ruse to get me to take down my blogs about OMI so that the IPO would earn him and his accomplices more £ millions.

The Spanish regulator has made it clear it is a criminal offence to sell insurance “bonds”.

No firm with a conscience or any professional ethics should ever use OMI, SEB or Generali. Anyone caught mis-selling such insurance bonds in Spain is committing a criminal offence and can face jail. As most advisory firms in Spain are still doing so vigorously and unashamedly (with the same old lame excuse that such bonds are “tax efficient”), the Spanish jails are likely to get pretty crowded in the not-too-distant future.

Spain is highly motivated to protect British expats who retire on Spanish soil – and is now learning how deeply dishonest and disloyal British “chiringuitos financieros” (the Spanish regulator’s term for financial scammers) are.

But how do people avoid getting scammed from now on?

Part of the problem is knowing what questions to ask – and then being able to understand the answers. Unfortunately, Stephen Ward was the exception to the rule – since he was highly qualified and his firm – Premier Pension Solutions – was authorised to provide investment advice.

1. Check that the firm is authorised (regulated; licensed). If investment advice is given, make sure the firm has an investment license: don’t be fooled into believing that an insurance license is enough. It isn’t.

2. Check that the adviser is qualified to give financial advice. He or she must provide evidence of any qualifications claimed. If the relevant institute does not show the qualification, then the adviser is not qualified – no matter what exams may have been passed previously.

3. Don’t get talked into an insurance bond (aka “life bond” or portfolio bond). They are expensive and unnecessary – and only serve to pay the adviser a fat commission.

4. Don’t let an adviser invest your funds into expensive, risky assets which are only there to pay fat, undisclosed commissions FROM YOUR MONEY.

Lastly, make sure you get everything – all costs, fees, charges and commissions – in writing. DON’T GET SCAMMED LIKE THE CONTINENTAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT VICTIMS. They will all give you exactly the same advice.

August 5, 2019

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

Fighting pension scams – Qualifications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ark Evergreen Capita Oak Westminster Southlands Headforte

Randwick Estates Bollington Wood Hammerley Halkin Feldspar

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

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

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

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

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

You wouldn’t go to an unqualified solicitor would you? So don’t use an unqualified financial adviser. Being qualified goes hand in hand with being regulated.
May 8, 2019
Fighting pension scams: Regulation
Fighting pension scams: Regulation

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

Here is our list of standards
1. Firm must be fully regulated – with licenses for insurance and investment advice
2. Advisers must be qualified to the right standard
3. Firm must have Professional Indemnity Insurance
4. Clients must have comprehensive fact finds and risk profiles
5. Firm must operate adequate compliance procedures
6. Advisers must not abuse insurance bonds
7. Clients must understand the investment policy
8. All fees, charges and commissions must be disclosed
9. Investors must know how their investments are performing
10. Firm must keep a log of all customer complaints
Why is regulation so important?:
- If a firm sells insurance, it must have an insurance license.
- If a firm gives investment advice, it must have an investment license.
Many advisers will claim that if they only have an insurance license, they can advise on investments if an insurance bond is used. This practice must be outlawed, because this is how so many scams happen.

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

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

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

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

Serial scammers such as Peter Moat, Stephen Ward, Phillip Nunn, and XXXX XXXX all ran unlicensed firms. Peter Moat operated the Fast Pensions scam which cost victims over £21 million. Stephen Ward operated the Ark, Evergreen, Capita Oak, Westminster and London Quantum pension scams which cost victims over £50 million. XXXX XXXX operated the Trafalgar pension scam which cost victims over £21 million.

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

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

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

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

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

YOU WOULDN’T USE AN UNLICENSED DOCTOR.

SO DON’T USE AN UNLICENSED FINANCIAL ADVISER.
April 27, 2019
Generali – jumping ship to avoid new regulations?

The mis-selling of life assurance policies and long-term savings plans has been a regular topic in our blogs. Many victims of pension scams see their funds mis-invested into life assurance policies. These life assurance policies do little more than drain the fund value with their expensive fees and costs.

Generali has for years been aggressively peddling these toxic products. Interestingly, they have just pulled their contractual savings plans – Vision and Choice – from the UAE market. Interesting and attractive names for profoundly ugly, expensive and destructive products.

We have to wonder if all the negative press surrounding Generali’s life assurance bonds has anything to do with it? Since 2016 there has been a huge rise in complaints surrounding the mis-selling of these products. With huge, concealed start-up costs, the funds rarely ever reach their original investment amount, let alone make a gain.

Furthermore, there has been a third push on regulations to improve how savings, investment and life insurance policies are sold. AND the Spanish insurance regulator (DGS) just confirmed that all such products sold in Spain have been done so illegally But Mr Vitiello of Generali claimed their decision to stop selling the Vision and Choice products in the Emirates was not linked to the new regulations. REALLY?!?!

Reported by The National. ae, Generali’s Marco Vitiello stated:

“We will not be accepting any new business applications for our current unit-linked saving products,” said Vitiello – General Manager of Generali’s Dubai branch. “There will be no impact at all to existing clients and contracts. They will continue to be serviced in the same manner as before.” In other words, they will just keep on losing money, being tied in for an unacceptable length of time and paying extortionate charges.

This is not the only big change Generali has made this month. The National.ae also reported that:

“Generali’s decision to stop distributing its contractual savings plans in the UAE came less than a week after the company sold its entire shareholding in its unit, Generali Worldwide Insurance, to the Guernsey-based Utmost Group”

We wrote about the proposed merger between Generali and Utmost Group back in August 2018.

The Utmost Group now has over £33bn in assets under administration and over 240,000 customers. We can only hope that customers of The Utmost Group will not become victims of mis-sold life assurance policies like the ones of Generali.

Generali was one of the culprits involved in the huge Continental Wealth Management pension scam, which saw as many as 1,000 victims, invested into high-risk, toxic, professional-investor-only structured notes.

Whilst the bulk of the victims were placed into OMI bonds, at least 25 (but probably nearer 100) of the victims were placed into Generali bonds by the scammers. The sum total of 25 pension funds invested into these toxic insurance bonds was a whopping £6,314,672. The losses on this amount are calculated to be approximately £3,604,528.

One victim invested £793,612 and has just £62,703 left! Losing a massive £730,909.

Another victim invested £142,626 and has lost £90,618! Leaving him with a fund of just £52,028.

Please note these figures are correct as at 2017/2018, so today’s value is now even lower. Despite the funds’ huge decrease in value, Generali continues to take their fees (based on the original amount deposited – not the current depleted value). Therefore, these amounts will continue to fall AND despite the massive loses be locked in for a fixed term.

It is, of course, a relief to know that they have decided to stop peddling these toxic, inappropriate bonds to victims. But we can’t help wondering why Generali have suddenly done this and really feel for those already caught up in these bogus “life” policies. Seems to us Generali are jumping ship to avoid the new regulations. With sudden revelations that maybe they should have checked all the details just a little bit more – and declined to take business from unregulated scammers.

As Generali are busy making changes and sales, we can only hope that compensating the victims of the CWM scam is on their to-do list. As they have sold their entire shareholdings, you might think that an honest firm would want to make right the wrongs they have done.

Not only did Generali allow these 25 victims to be put into wholly inappropriate funds and high-risk structured notes, but these investment instructions were also accepted from unregulated advisers. The scammers were paid high commissions by Generali and there is no sign of any remorse for the huge losses suffered by the victims.

What we do know is that victims are now preparing their complaints against Generali and CWM. The DGS has found that there is no doubt that the regulations of sale surrounding these products were breached by Generali.

Generali are not the only life office guilty of financial crimes: Old Mutual International and SEB were even worse – facilitating losses on a massive scale in the Continental Wealth Management case. OMI bought £94,000,000 worth of ultra-high-risk structured notes for retail investors – resulting in huge losses. Old Mutual was also heavily involved in more than £1,000,000,000 worth of losses in the Axiom, LM and Premier investment scams.

Seems it is no accident that “Generali” is an anagram of “Liar Gene”.

.

March 13, 2019
Ten Essential Standards For Pension Advice
Ten Essential Standards For Pension Advice:

The ongoing war against pension scammers continues with no sign that the end is near. The authorities stand idly by – facilitating mis-selling and outright fraud.

HMRC happily registers pension scam after scam after scam (followed by tax demands). Prosecutions are few and far between.

The only conclusive way to stop scammers is to ensure there are no victims for them to scam. AND the only way to do this is to educate consumers and drum the TEN STANDARDS into them.

PENSION SCAMMERS MUST BE STOPPED!

Ten Essential Standards For Pension Advice:

Do you know what a pension scammer looks like? The unfortunate answer is, he looks like any other Tom, Dick or Harry (or James, Stephen or Darren) walking down the street. Not only is he good at disguises, he also has the gift of the gab and he will have you convinced that the pension transfer he is offering you will pave the rest of your life with gold. In reality though, the gold will be short lived (or non-existent), and some or all of your fund will probably go poof! (along with the adviser).

Much as a master illusionist takes your breath away with his magic, a master scammer takes your money away with his silver tongue. You will be left wondering just how this smart-looking, sleek-talking ‘adviser’ managed to leave your pension – and probably your life – in tatters.

We have compiled a list of ten standards that EVERY firm offering pension advice should adhere to. Every qualified adviser working for an advisory firm should also be able to meet all of these standards. On Facebook recently, one reader stated: “Why would anyone respond to an unsolicited offer to manage their money from a complete stranger?” The answer is, “I don’t know, but they do!“. So, get to know a financial adviser long before you let them anywhere near your finances.

In the case of Capita Oak, for example, we saw many targeted victims who were struggling financially. So, the offer of a lump sum release and the opportunity of an investment that promised “guaranteed returns” was music to their ears.

Many of the victims didn’t stop to think; didn’t pause to ask the right questions; or do any research to make sure the pension offer came from a viable, credible, regulated firm. The victims just said “yes” as they thought the transfer would make life easier.

For example, with the awful benefit of hindsight – six years on – the Capita Oak victims are grappling with tax demands from HMRC and the possibility that the investment they are trapped in will go into liquidation. These people all wish they had stopped and thought before going ahead.

Sadly, the Capita Oak members who were defrauded by a bunch of scammers, (many of which are under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office) such as XXXX, Stuart Chapman-Clarke and Stephen Ward, are not alone. Thousands of other victims of both UK-based and offshore scams and mis-selling are facing similar regrets: these include victims of scams such as Evergreen New Zealand QROPS; Fast Pensions, Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund/STM Fidecs; Blackmore Global Fund; and Continental Wealth Management.

Mastermind serial scammer Stephen Ward has orchestrated a whole array of different scams over the last nine years. One of the biggest ones was Continental Wealth Management – a 1,000-victim scam. Ward was once a fully qualified and registered adviser and a pension trustee. He has destroyed dozens of pensions funds and thousands of victims’ lives. Yet he has never been prosecuted or forced to pay back even one penny of his victims’ losses. Only at the end of 2018 was he finally banned from being a pension trustee.

Most of the known scams used cold-calling techniques to reel in their victims. Whilst we saw a cold-calling ban on pension sales in 2019, we have already had reports that sneaky firms have changed their scripts to avoid fines. AND we are now seeing scammers focus their targets back onto expats. Which makes us worry there will be more QROPS disasters in the pipeline from now on.

Just a few minutes of research – as well as knowing the right questions to ask and understanding what standards an adviser and firm should adhere to – could have prevented past victims from losing so much of their precious pension pots. We can’t change what happened in the past – other than to take action against the scammers and negligent advisers – but we can help consumers understand what they should be looking for in an adviser:

STANDARDS ACCREDITATION CHECKLIST FOR FINANCIAL ADVISERS:
1. Proof of regulation for all services provided by the firm and individual advisers in the jurisdiction where advice is given
2. Evidence of appropriate qualifications and CPD for all advisers
3. Professional Indemnity Insurance
4. Details of how fact finds are carried out, and how clients’ risk profiles are determined and adhered to
5. Details of the firm’s compliance procedures – assuring clients of the highest possible standards
6. Clear and consistent explanation and justification of the use of insurance bonds for pensions and investments
7. Clear policy on structured notes, UCIS and in-house funds, non-standard assets and commission-paying investments
8. Full disclosure of all fees, charges and commissions on all products and services at time of sale, in writing
9. Account of how clients are updated on fund/portfolio performance
10. Evidence of customer complaints made, rejected or upheld and redress paid
If the firm you are thinking about using for your pension transfer do not adhere to all of these standards, find one that does. Your pension pot is your life savings – so don’t entrust it to any old unregulated firm or dishonest scammer. Remember, thousands of victims have already failed to ask the above ten questions – and will regret it for the rest of their lives.
March 11, 2019
Cold calling scammers target expats after the ban in UK – BBC4 You and Yours

Every year we are seeing an increase in the number of victims falling for pension and investment scams. Despite warnings in the public domain and a huge array of information about how to avoid falling victim to a scam, it seems the scammers are so skilled at their sales techniques, that even the cleverest of people can fall for their slick pitches. Often the scammers use cold-calling techniques to initiate these pitches: using emails, texts, mail shots and the good ol’ phone.

We finally saw the introduction of the cold calling ban come into place in January 2019, with huge fines being threatened to firms using these techniques to promote pension sales. We have already written about the firms who have changed their scripts to escape the fines: Cadde Wealth Management is one of these firms. On top of this, we now find that the cold-calling ban has just encouraged the scammers to divert their efforts to British expats.

BBC4 You and Yours recently discussed how the cold-calling ban in the UK has seen a change in the scammers’ behaviour. Unfortunately, this is not a change for the better. As the ban only applies to the UK, scammers are targeting expats instead. This means UK pension holders are still the main target for pension scammers and are at greater risk than ever.

Listen to the show here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000241

Interviewed in the programme, Jamie Jenkins says he has noticed this change. He is Head of Global Saving Policy at Standard Life. He states in the report, “In recent months we have known that the cold-calling ban is coming in and criminals know that too. So we have seen a switch from cold calls originating in the UK to UK customers, to overseas calls to expat customers living abroad.”

Ironically, Standard Life has been one of the worst performers in terms of ceding pension providers who have recklessly and negligently handed over millions of pounds’ worth of pensions to the scammers. Completely ignoring the Pensions Regulator’s warnings in 2010, they shoveled £millions across to pension scams such as Ark, Capita Oak, Westminster, Continental Wealth Management, Global Fiduciary Services and many other QROPS scams.

Here at Pension Life, we know that expats are not just a new target of cold callers – many expats have already fallen victim to horrific pension scams, like those who lost large chunks of their pension funds to CWM. Continental Wealth Management fraudsters like Darren Kirby, cold-called victims, then followed through with repeat house calls and persuaded around 1,000 UK pension holders to transfer out of safe DB pensions into QROPS and illegally-sold life insurance bonds (such as OMI, Generali, SEB, RL360). With promises of high returns, a lump sum in cash and greater freedoms, many professional and well-educated people fell for the scam.

Many victims are now trapped in bogus life “bonds” that are falling in value yearly, while the life offices continue to take their quarterly charges – further damaging the impaired funds. Fortunately, the Spanish regulator – the DGS – has outlawed the selling of bogus life assurance policies this week, ensuring there should be fewer victims of this type of scam.

Here is our cartoon video reconstruction of how the Continental Wealth Management scam worked:

The BBC programme also talks to a Continental Wealth Management victim, Rebecca Cooke, who lost £75,000 after transferring out of an NHS pension and other secure investments.

“We were approached in 2012/13 by a company based in Spain (Continental Wealth Management) who were offering us advice about moving our private pension from the UK into another investment scheme based in the EU. We went with them, but it became blatantly obvious that we had suffered catastrophic losses in our pension and chased them up about what was happening. They had actually invested our funds badly and put them in high-risk rather in low to medium risk funds. Consequently, we had lost that amount of money (£75,000).”

She said she feels stupid for falling for the scam, but she is not alone in believing the shiny sales pitch of these scamming criminals.

It seems the only way to escape the scammers – anywhere in the world – is not to fall for their lies. But the challenge is to know what is true and what is false. And that isn’t easy – the scammers are very clever and can adapt quickly to invalidate public warnings and even use them to their advantage. In addition to the scammers, there are now offshore claims management companies circling like vultures and conning people into believing that complaints against offshore firms can be upheld by UK-based ombudsmen – and that claims can be made against the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme) in respect of Maltese trustees.

Know what questions to ask your IFA, click here to watch our cartoon

February 20, 2019
More negligence from trustees Berkeley Burke – Store First

Another victim of Berkeley Burke SIPPS investments into Store First storage pods has come forward. 55-year-old factory worker Robert McCarthy, of Ebbw Vale, said he has lost more than £30,000 through a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). He was duped into the transfer and investment by unregulated firm Jackson Francis which was liquidated in 2014. His investment may or may not be worthless – depending on whether Store First is wound up later in 2019.

Robert McCarthy – who is one of 500 Store First investors who used Berkeley Burke as their SIPP provider – made a serious complaint against Berkeley Burke – and spoke to BBC News on the matter.

McCarthy said:

“Basically I’ve lost my private pension. Thirteen years of hard work, they’ve taken it, it’s gone.

I’ll never trust anyone again. And I can’t believe that they can get away with what they’ve done.”

The BBC has reported Store First as saying that: “In McCarthy’s case, Berkeley Burke failed to instruct Store First on how to manage the pods they purchased as part of a SIPPS. This means that the store pods have stood empty since their purchase. With returns based on rent paid for using the pods purchased, no returns have been made on these empty pods.”

This scam follows the same path as so many other scams we see: an unregulated advisory firm, Liverpool-based company Jackson Francis, introduced the victims to Berkely Burke and the Store First investment. (Jackson Francis was wound up in 2014). With promises of the investment being ‘the next best thing’ and also guaranteed high returns, 500 people signed their pensions over to the SIPPS provider Berkeley Burke.

Berkeley Burke then invested the SIPPS into the store pods, but failed to give permission for Store First to rent the pods out on behalf of the investors – meaning they stood empty. Store First said they were never contracted to manage, advertise or let the storage pods. That responsibility, they say, lies with the pension trustee, Berkeley Burke.

This is not the first time Berkeley Burke have been accused of negligence. In the High Court last October, Berkeley Burke was found to have failed to show due diligence in vetting unregulated investments for another client. The company are currently seeking to appeal against the decision. But with a further 14 individuals, based in Wales alone, making complaints against them, there is definitely no smoke without fire.

Victims were also invested into the Store First storage pods via Capita Oak registered by HMRC on 23.7.2012 (PSTR 00785484RM) by Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Transfers of 31 Memorial Road, Worsley and Premier Pension Solutions of Moraira, Spain. Victims of this scam were lured in by a chap named XXXX who also sold them Thurlstone liberation “loans”. Victims who took the ‘loan’ now face huge tax bills from HMRC for unauthorised payments.

Whilst Capita Oak tuned out to be a scam (currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office) and victims have lost huge chunks of their pensions, the initial presentation they were given made the scheme look 100% genuine.

I spend a lot of time sharing our blogs over Facebook into different groups, trying to get the message across about pension scams. Interestingly, many of my posts are met with negative comments.

Last week in a comment on an expat forum, I was told that my blog about expats being targeted by scammers was “irrelevant”. I have also had comments like: “I would never fall for a scam.” However, there is clear evidence that falling for a scam doesn´t make you stupid or naive – especially when the scammers are so good at disguising their sham schemes as genuine investments.

Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions, our most prolific pension scammer, was a fully qualified (to the highest level) and registered financial adviser in Spain. He was also a registered pensions trustee (he has only just been banned as a pension trustee – despite his shady past). Yet Ward has promoted not just the Capita Oak/Store First scam, but also many, many more over a ten-year period. Some of these include Ark, Evergreen (New Zealand) QROPS, Henley Retirement Benefits Scheme, London Quantum, Elysian Bio Fuels, Continental Wealth Management.

Therefore, when it comes to the crunch, it is incredibly easy to fall for a pension scam – especially when it is registered by HMRC and promoted by a qualified financial adviser. It is hard to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys (who are so good at clever disguises). Pension scam victims include airline pilots, doctors and nurses, teachers, scientists, bankers and even a solicitor or two. Anyone can fall for a cleverly-sold scam – and they frequently do.

Toby Whittaker, owner of Store First, as you can see from his Twitter page, is still promoting Group First and Store First as going concerns. He is also fighting the winding-up petition by the Insolvency Service against Store First.

Despite the fact that the Capita Oak scam now lies in the hands of Dalriada Trustees (appointed by the Pensions Regulator) and the ongoing petition to have Store First wound up (purportedly in the “public interest”), Toby Whittaker still stands proud and says he had no idea that his company was being used as part of a scam.

Over a period of two years, Store First owner Toby Whittaker paid £33m commission to Transeuro Worldwide Holdings Ltd, which funded Jackson Francis.

No one knows where the money went, but it certainly didn´t go to the victims of this scam. We can bet it lined the pockets of the scamming salesmen who incorrectly invested over 1,000 victims’ pensions into Store First.

If the UK government succeeds in its petition to wind Store First up, the hundreds of victims will lose all the funds in their pensions.

The message here is:

Scams are registered by HMRC – which can make them appear to be official and bona fide.

Scammers can make their “schemes” appear to be genuine and to offer viable investments.

Pensions should be invested in low to medium risk, liquid investments.

Many funds that promise high returns are also high-risk and not safe for your pension fund.

Know ALL the facts about your investment and what questions to ask.

Pension liberation scams are now, thankfully, few and far between scammers are busier than ever, so be careful when investing: scammers lurk all over the globe.

Always use a qualified adviser who works for a fully-regulated firm that has the correct investment license – and not just an insurance license.

So, if it sounds too good to be true – it probably is.

And finally…

Cold called and offered a free pension review – JUST HANG UP.

Safeguard your pension from the scammers.

February 20, 2019
Death of the Life Bond (Life of the Death Bond?)
Attention financial advisers in Spain/who provide financial advice to Spanish residents.

18^th February 2019

DEATH OF THE LIFE BOND:

The Spanish insurance and pensions regulator, the DGS, made a judgment against Costa Blanca-based Continental Wealth Management (CWM) on 10.1.2019. The order (translated and summarised below) confirmed that there are strict regulations in Spain for the sale of insurance products. The DGS also made it clear that even if a firm is not regulated in Spain by the DGS, it must conform to the Spanish regulations.

The deadline for compliance with the order was Monday 11^th February. Unsurprisingly, CWM failed to comply. CWM had collapsed in September 2017 and all the scammers who worked for the firm headed for the hills (or Australia). We are now enforcing this order by criminal action against all those responsible. This also opens the way for similar action against any other firms who have mis-sold insurance products without complying with the Spanish regulations.

In certain, limited circumstances, insurance bonds can be beneficial. But in the vast majority of cases they are entirely mis-sold, and the underlying commissions concealed. These hidden commissions prevent the funds from growing and have an ever-increasing detrimental effect on the value of the fund. I have seen evidence of an entire fund being destroyed by irresponsible, risky, commission-laden investments. The life offices (such as OMI, SEB, FPI, RL360 and Generali) continue to apply their quarterly charges while the funds are being destroyed – sometimes even pushing the funds into negative territory.

Why should the use of life bonds be strictly controlled?

I have transcribed the DGS’ judgment below. It is an abbreviated, translated version of the original. I also set out below the reasons why life bonds should now be strictly controlled and only sold/advised by qualified, regulated firms. Once an international standards agreement has been established, it should be possible to ensure that only those firms who understand how to use these products properly will use them in future.

I hope that all advisers providing insurance advice in Spain – and beyond – will now ensure that losses caused by the mis-selling of life bonds are put right. I also hope that this policy will be adopted throughout Europe and in all other jurisdictions so that the worldwide mis-selling scandal can finally be ended.

There will be criminal proceedings – and these will extend to the life offices themselves for profiting from financial crime. The many victims whose life savings have been destroyed by the life offices and their toxic practices will welcome this news. The victims themselves know intimately the numerous faults of the life offices:
- accepting business from (and paying undisclosed commissions to) known scammers and unregulated advisory firms
- offering high-risk, unregulated funds such as Axiom, LM, Premier New Earth and other no-hoper funds
- offering professional-investor-only structured notes from providers such as Leonteq, Commerzbank and Nomura
- reporting the inexorable losses but taking no remedial action
- locking victims into the expensive, pointless bonds long after the majority of the funds had been destroyed
This latest development with the DGS judgment will help the victims take action against negligent life offices such as Old Mutual International and Friends Provident International. This will be a powerful weapon in the recovery process against these parasitic, negligent and greedy insurance companies.

I set out below, in red, reasons why insurance bonds should now be strictly controlled internationally. This is not just my opinion – but an order by the Spanish government. In my view, this is a very sensible and useful order which is in the interests of all consumers throughout Europe and the wider world.

Decent, ethical, regulated firms will comply with the DGS’ judgment. The scammers will not.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Madrid, 10 January 2019 – Complaints service file number 268/2016

Chief Inspector of Unit – Ministry of Economy and Enterprise

Secretary of State for the Economy and Business Support

General Directorate of Insurance and Pension Funds (DGS)

Article 6 of Law 26/2006, of 17 July, on private insurance and reinsurance mediation, which regulates the general obligations of insurance intermediaries, states:

“Insurance intermediaries shall provide truthful and sufficient information in the promotion, supply and underwriting of insurance contracts, and, in general, in all their advisory activity….”

The scammers do not, of course, comply with this regulation. In fact, scammers rarely tell their clients that they are going to be put into an insurance bond. Unscrupulous advisers often conceal how the bond will work or for how many years they will be locked in for. Normally, scammers wave an agreement for an OMI, SEB, Generali, FPI or RL360 bond under the nose of the clients – and ask them to sign the agreement with no explanation. Rarely do the scammers allow the client to read the document properly, or disclose the commission they will receive from selling the often pointless bond.

Victims will be locked into the bond long after they have worked out that the adviser has mis-sold the product purely for the 8% commission – and that the charges will prevent the fund from ever growing. In fact, even if the underlying asset were to perform reasonably well, it would struggle to keep up with the combination of the bond and adviser costs.

It is rarely explained that the bond is a bogus life assurance policy (or series of policies); that any life cover is only actually 101% of the original value of the funds the victim has unwittingly placed into the bond. If all the clients had wanted was life cover in the first place, this product would represent terrible value for money. The Spanish Supreme Court has already ruled that life assurance policies are void for the purpose of holding investments – because the life office takes no risk.

Therefore, the life bond fails on three counts:
1. it is a useless life assurance policy
2. it is a useless investment platform
3. it does not comply with Spanish regulations.
I could go on: the life bond is expensive; fails to disclose adviser commissions; offers high-risk, unregulated funds; accepts business from known scammers and unregulated firms; allows professional-investor-only structured notes for retail investors. The list is endless.

Article 26 paragraphs 2 and 3 of Law 26/2006, of 17 July, on private insurance and reinsurance mediation, which refers to insurance brokers, establishes the following:

“Insurance brokers must inform the person who tries to take out the insurance about the conditions of the contract which, in their opinion, it is appropriate to take out and offer the cover which, according to their professional criteria, is best adapted to the needs of the former. The broker must ensure the client’s requirements will be met effectively by the insurance policy.”

If the client had stipulated that he needed a life assurance policy (which he usually didn’t), the adviser should have explained fully how and why any product offered fitted the client’s needs. This virtually never happens. The adviser has already decided (long before he has even met the client – let alone carried out a fact find) – that he is going to flog him a bond from whichever life company is paying the highest commission. And this is how so many victims end up with useless insurance products from OMI, SEB, Generali, RL360, Friends Provident International, Hansard, Investors Trust etc.

Even if the client had specifically asked for – say – £100,000 worth of life cover, these “life” policies could never guarantee to provide that cover. In a proper, bona fide life assurance contract (where the client pays a monthly premium for the life of the policy) the pay-out is guaranteed. In these bogus life assurance policies, the value of the pay-out inevitably decreases as the charges eat into the fund. This is normally the case when disproportionately risky investments are made by the life offices.

Article 42 of the Private Insurance and Reinsurance Mediation Act, which refers to the information to be provided by the insurance intermediary prior to the conclusion of an insurance contract, provides:

“Before an insurance contract is concluded, the insurance intermediary must, as a minimum, provide the customer with the following information:
1. a) The broker’s identity and address.
2. b) The Register in which the broker is registered, as well as the means of verifying such registration.”
This rarely happens in practice – unless the broker is one of the very few professional and ethical firms in the expat world. An adviser might claim to be based in one jurisdiction, but could – in fact – be based in an entirely different one. “Passporting” is often misused as advisers “fly in under the radar” and provide advice in jurisdictions where they have no legal right to operate.

Insurance agents must inform the customer of the names of the insurance companies with which they can carry out the mediation activity in the insurance product offered.

Agents often have terms of business with more than one life office – but will rarely disclose the fact that some or all of them have a long history of facilitating financial crime internationally.

In order for the client to be able to exercise the right to information about the insurance entities for which they mediate, insurance agents must notify the client of the right to request such information.

I have never seen an instance of this happening – which is not to say it doesn’t happen. Just that I haven’t seen it. But then people don’t come to me when things are going swimmingly – they only come when they have lost some, most or all of their fund.

Banking and insurance operators must inform their clients that the advice given is provided for the purpose of taking out an insurance policy and not any other product that the credit institution may market.

And herein lies the problem: the advice is rarely provided for the purpose of taking out an insurance policy – the advice is usually given because the client wants his pension or life savings invested safely, prudently and profitably. Few – if any – clients come to the adviser to ask for a life assurance policy. But they get one, whether they need it – or can afford it – or not.

Insurance brokers must inform the client that they provide advice in accordance with the following obligations:

“Insurance brokers are obliged to carry out and provide (to the customer) an objective analysis on the basis of a comparison of a sufficient number of insurance contracts offered on the market for the risks to be covered. Brokers must do this so that they can formulate an objective recommendation.”

I have never seen an example of an adviser offering a client a selection of possible insurance contracts. The adviser has normally decided which life product he is going to flog long before the client even walks through the door. In a normal insurance contract relationship, it is the insurer which takes the risk. But in life bond contracts, it is the insured who takes the risk – i.e. that his life cover will be substantially lower than that originally contracted and that, indeed, his fund will be severely impaired by the costs of the contract.

On the basis of information provided by the customer, insurance intermediaries shall specify the requirements and needs of the customer, as well as the reasons justifying any advice they may have given on a particular insurance. The intermediary must answer all questions raised by the client regarding the function and complexity of the proposed insurance contract.

I have never seen this happen – which is not to say that it doesn’t happen. But the adviser could only explain to the customer that the sole purpose of the life bond is to pay him 8% commission. And that would inevitably spook the customer – so the adviser doesn’t bother. There will surely be all sorts of flim-flam about the life bond allegedly providing tax efficiency. However, any real tax savings will be resoundingly eclipsed by the high charges.

All intermediaries operating in Spain must comply with the rules laid down for reasons of general interest and the applicable rules on the protection of the insured, in accordance with the provisions of Article 65 of the Law on the Mediation of Private Insurance and Reinsurance.

I have never seen a single instance of an intermediary complying with the DGS rules in Spain or anywhere else. But that is because I only ever hear about cases where the clients suffer losses. The people who are well looked after by competent, professional, ethical brokers never bother contacting me – because they don’t need to! However, I would love to hear from advisers who do abide by the rules.

Every insurance intermediary is obliged, before the conclusion of the insurance contract, to provide full disclosure.

Never happens in my experience. The commission is normally concealed, and the inflexibility of the lock-in period is rarely explained. The victims usually only find this out after they have realised they have been scammed.

In the event that a mediator was an Insurance Broker or independent mediator, he is also obliged to give advice in accordance with the obligation to carry out an objective analysis.

Never happens in my experience. The adviser/mediator doesn’t use the life assurance product for life assurance, but as a bogus “wrapper” for holding investments. Therefore, the likely outcome of any objective analysis is very unlikely ever to be fulfilled.

This must be provided on the basis of the analysis of a sufficient number of insurance contracts offered on the market for the risks to be covered. The mediator can then formulate a recommendation, using professional criteria, in respect of the insurance contract that would be appropriate to the needs of the client.

I have never seen an instance of a mediator offering a selection of possible contracts – and there are no risks to be covered, as the insurer takes no risks. This is why these products have been deemed by the Spanish Supreme Court to be invalid. However, if a mediator were to offer a “selection” of life bonds, they would all be identical as they are all just as bad as each other.

In the case in question, there is no evidence that the aforementioned information was provided to the client before the investment product was contracted. Therefore, Article 42 of the regulations has been breached.

As it has in just about every instance I have ever seen in Spain – and beyond. In fact, one firm in Spain – Blevins Franks – only offers one insurance product and that is Lombard. This is completely illegal.

Therefore, this Claims Service concludes that the mediator must justify the information and prior advice given to his client, so that the obligations imposed by the Law of Mediation can be understood to be fulfilled with the aim of protecting the insured. Failure to comply with their obligations could be considered as one of the causes of the damage that would have occurred to their client.

I have never seen an instance of any firm complying with the obligations imposed by law in Spain. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen – and I would love to hear from firms who do comply with this law so that my knowledge can be broadened. However, if this does happen, it is only likely to be in the case of ethical firms, and they are unlikely to use these bogus life assurance policies anyway.

The claim is understood to be founded. In the opinion of this Claims Service, the mediating entity has committed a breach of the regulations regulating the mediation activity – specifically of the provisions of articles 6 and 42 of Law 26/2006 of Mediation of Private Insurance and Reinsurance.

The DGS requires the mediating entity to account to this Service, within a period of one month from the notification of this report, for the decision adopted in view of it, for the purposes of exercising the powers of surveillance and control that are the responsibility of the Ministry of Economy and Enterprise.

The entity – Continental Wealth Management – did not, indeed, comply with the DGS’ requirement. This now gives the green light for this firm and the directors and shadow directors associated with it – as well as the life office which was complicit in this scam – to be subject to criminal proceedings. The life offices, in this case, were complicit as they were effectively profiting from financial crime.

The interested parties are informed that there is no appeal to this judgment. Both the claimant and the mediating entity are made aware of their right to resort to the Courts of Justice to resolve any differences that may arise between them regarding the interpretation and compliance with the regulations in force regarding the mediation of private insurance and reinsurance, in accordance with the provisions of articles 24 and 117 of the Constitution.

THE DEATH OF THE LIFE BOND

I think it would be no understatement to say that this heralds the end of the mis-use and abuse of life bonds (also known as portfolio bonds or insurance bonds). Not just in Spain, but throughout Europe and beyond. This will be warmly welcomed by the thousands of victims who have lost their life savings to rogue insurance companies such as OMI, SEB, FPI and Generali, and unregulated scammers such as Continental Wealth Management.

The ethical sector of the financial advice industry will, of course, be delighted – and there will be a mad scramble by the rogues to find a way round this ruling. And they will fail.
February 18, 2019
No more bogus life assurance policies in Spain
The Spanish Insurance Regulator – the DGS (Dirección General de Seguros y Fondos de Pensiones) – has made a most welcome judgment. This outlaws the mis-selling of bogus life assurance policies as investment “platforms” – aka “life bonds”. Read the translated summary below.

The iniquitous practice of scamming victims into these expensive, pointless bonds – so beloved by the “chiringuitos” (scammers) on the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol for many years – will now result in criminal convictions for the peddlers of these toxic products.

The DGS’ judgment has provided reinforcement to the earlier Spanish Supreme Court’s ruling that life assurance contracts used to hold “single-premium” investments are invalid. This heralds a huge step forward in cleaning up the filthy scams which have for so long proliferated in popular British expat communities – making the victims poor and the perpetrators rich. This evil practice came to a head when scammers Continental Wealth Management collapsed in a pile of debris in September 2017. The main perps: Darren Kirby, Dean Stogsdill, Anthony Downs, Richard Peasley, Alan Gorringe, Neil Hathaway, Antony Poole all ran for the hills. Other scammers who played supporting roles – including Stephen Ward, Martyn Ryan and Paul Clarke – slithered away quietly to ply their scams elsewhere.

The DGS ruling has opened the way for criminal prosecutions against all those at Continental Wealth Management who profited so handsomely from flogging “life bonds” by Old Mutual International (aka OMI and Royal Skandia), Generali and SEB. While it goes without saying there will be a hearty cheer about the jailing of Darren Kirby and his merry men, they will soon be joined by other individuals who have joined in the bogus life insurance fest just as enthusiastically. And, of course, the life offices – from OMI, Generali and SEB, to Friends Provident and RL360 – will be treated to a proceeds-of-crime party.

Guest of honour will, of course, be Peter Kenny of OMI. But just to make sure nobody feels left out, Hansard and Investors Trust will certainly get their invites. Maybe Wormwood Scrubs will set up their own wing for life-office scammers.

It has long seemed curious that such a delightful part of Spain as the Costa Blanca should have fostered such an evil industry. From the arch scammer himself – Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions, and his many associates including Paul Clarke who was helping him flog Ark before he joined CWM to learn to scam on a much larger scale. But anywhere along that delightful stretch of coastline running from Valencia to Alicante there are dozens of firms giving the life bond machine plenty of welly.

So popular is the use of life bonds among the seedier sector of the financial services industry, that multi-national firm Blevins Franks have their own their “exclusive” offering of bogus Lombard bonds. And you can see why: these scammers earn 8% from flogging these bogus life assurance policies. That’s 8% for doing nothing – and for trapping their victims into paying back this commission over up to ten years. Often long after the victims have worked out that the bond serves no purpose except to prevent the funds from ever growing.

The victims themselves – hundreds of which lost most (or in some cases all) of their life savings to Continental Wealth Management – will indeed see the DGS’ ruling as wonderful news. They will certainly celebrate the fact that justice has at last prevailed and that the law in Spain has made it clear that selling life assurance policies the traditional scamming way is illegal.

Continental Wealth Management (CWM – “sister company” to Stephen Ward’s Premier Pension Solutions) was set up initially to provide the cold calling and lead generation services to support Ward’s many scams – including the Evergreen (New Zealand) QROPS scam. Evergreen was swiftly followed by the Capita Oak and Westminster scams (now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office). Unregulated, and staffed by unqualified salesmen who took it in turns to sport grand titles such as “Managing Director” and “Investment Director”, most of these spivs had been car salesmen or estate agents before flogging QROPS and life assurance contracts used to hold the toxic structured notes which destroyed so many millions of pounds’ worth of the victims’ life savings. Many of these bonds were supplied by Old Mutual International, who despite the huge losses on the funds, continued to take their fees monthly.

Back in April 2018, OMI and the IOM were defeated by Spanish courts ruling that the jurisdiction in litigation against them for facilitating financial crime should be in Spain. This was a welcomed victory for the victims in the face of so much corruption and fraud in Spain for many years. It is certainly a turning point in the quest for justice by the thousands of victims of scammers such as Continental Wealth Management and life offices such as Old Mutual International, Generali and SEB.

I will be writing to all advisory firms who are selling life bonds to victims in Spain to advise them that this is now a criminal matter and to warn them that they will be reported to the DGS.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Madrid, 10 January 2019

General Directorate of Insurance and Pension Funds (DGS)

Complaints service file number 268/2016

COMPLAINT BY A CONTINENTAL WEALTH CLIENT IN RESPECT OF HEAVY LOSSES INCURRED ON HIS PENSION TRANSFERRED TO A BOURSE QROPS AND PLACED IN A GENERALI INSURANCE BOND.

The Directorate General of Insurance and Pension Funds is competent under the powers conferred on it by Article 46 of Law 26/2006 of 17 July, on the mediation of private insurance and reinsurance, to examine the claim formulated for the purpose of determining non-compliance with current regulations on the mediation of private insurance and reinsurance, and whether this is decisive for the adoption of any of the relevant administrative control measures, particularly those of administrative sanction, which contravene the aforementioned Law.

Article 6 of Law 26/2006, of 17 July, on private insurance and reinsurance mediation, which regulates the general obligations of insurance intermediaries, states:

“Insurance intermediaries shall provide truthful and sufficient information in the promotion, supply and underwriting of insurance contracts, and, in general, in all their advisory activity….”

Article 26 paragraphs 2 and 3 of Law 26/2006, of 17 July, on private insurance and reinsurance mediation, which refers to insurance brokers, establishes the following:

“Insurance brokers must inform the person who tries to take out the insurance about the conditions of the contract which, in their opinion, it is appropriate to take out and offer the cover which, according to their professional criteria, is best adapted to the needs of the former. The broker must ensure the client’s requirements will be met effectively by the insurance policy.”

Article 42 of the Private Insurance and Reinsurance Mediation Act, which refers to the information to be provided by the insurance intermediary prior to the conclusion of an insurance contract, provides:

“Before an insurance contract is concluded, the insurance intermediary must, as a minimum, provide the customer with the following information:
1. a) The broker’s identity and address.
2. b) The Register in which the broker is registered, as well as the means of verifying such registration.”
Insurance agents must inform the customer of the names of the insurance companies with which they can carry out the mediation activity in the insurance product offered.

In order for the client to be able to exercise the right to information about the insurance entities for which they mediate, insurance agents must notify the client of the right to request such information.

Banking and insurance operators, in addition to the provisions of the previous letter, must inform their clients that the advice given is provided for the purpose of taking out an insurance policy and not any other product that the credit institution may market.

Insurance brokers must inform the client that they provide advice in accordance with the following obligations:

“Insurance brokers are obliged to carry out and provide (to the customer) an objective analysis on the basis of a comparison of a sufficient number of insurance contracts offered on the market for the risks to be covered. Brokers must do this so that they can formulate an objective recommendation.”

On the basis of information provided by the customer, insurance intermediaries shall specify the requirements and needs of the customer, as well as the reasons justifying any advice they may have given on a particular insurance. The intermediary must answer all questions raised by the client regarding the function and complexity of the proposed insurance contract.

All intermediaries operating in Spain must comply with the rules laid down for reasons of general interest and the applicable rules on the protection of the insured, in accordance with the provisions of Article 65 of the Law on the Mediation of Private Insurance and Reinsurance.

Every insurance intermediary is obliged, before the conclusion of the insurance contract, to provide full disclosure. In the event that a mediator was an Insurance Broker or independent mediator, he is also obliged to give advice in accordance with the obligation to carry out an objective analysis. This must be provided on the basis of the analysis of a sufficient number of insurance contracts offered on the market for the risks to be covered. The mediator can then formulate a recommendation, using professional criteria, in respect of the insurance contract that would be appropriate to the needs of the client.

In the case in question, there is no evidence that the aforementioned information was provided to the client before the investment product was contracted. Therefore, Article 42 of the regulations has been breached.

Therefore, this Claims Service concludes that the mediator must justify the information and prior advice given to his client, so that the obligations imposed by the Law of Mediation can be understood to be fulfilled with the aim of protecting the insured. Failure to comply with their obligations could be considered as one of the causes of the damage that would have occurred to their client.

The claim is understood to be founded. In the opinion of this Claims Service, the mediating entity has committed a breach of the regulations regulating the mediation activity – specifically of the provisions of articles 6 and 42 of Law 26/2006 of Mediation of Private Insurance and Reinsurance.

The DGS requires the mediating entity to account to this Service, within a period of one month from the notification of this report, for the decision adopted in view of it, for the purposes of exercising the powers of surveillance and control that are the responsibility of the Ministry of Economy and Enterprise.

The interested parties are informed that there is no appeal to this judgment. Both the claimant and the mediating entity are made aware of their right to resort to the Courts of Justice to resolve any differences that may arise between them regarding the interpretation and compliance with the regulations in force regarding the mediation of private insurance and reinsurance, in accordance with the provisions of articles 24 and 117 of the Constitution.

Chief Inspector of Unit

Ministry of Economy and Enterprise

Secretary of State for the Economy and Business Support
February 17, 2019
Expats and Brexit – Safeguard your pension

BREXIT is the question on everybody’s lips at the moment. BREXIT: will we? won´t we? deal? no deal? So many unanswered questions and so much scaremongering. We would like to offer some helpful words and hopefully protect you from making rash decisions. This could help you to safeguard your pension. Many scammers are trying to cash in on Brexit – make sure sure you’re not their next victim.

Remember I am not a financial adviser. I am a blogger, and I write about financial crime. I provide information about past scams and on how to avoid falling victim to new scams – especially pension scams. The words I write are aimed to help you safeguard your pension from the many offshore scammers.

So, Expats, what does Brexit mean for your pension rights? The short answer is that we really do not know! There are currently lots of “coulds” and “mights” being thrown around, but no certainties. And herein lies the risk that you and your pension could fall victim to a scam with all this scaremongering.

We are seeing a lot of adverts for expats to transfer into a QROPS before the dreaded 11pm on March 29, 2019. One company I have noticed that seems to be using Brexit to attract customers is Spectrum IFA. Back on 1st July 2018, we wrote a qualified and registered blog about Spectrum IFA. They didn´t do too well.

Firstly, despite Spectrum IFA advertising themselves as “international financial advisers”, with some digging we were able to find out that they DO NOT in fact have an investment licence. This means they are not legally allowed to advise on pensions or investments. Secondly, they scored rather poorly on the qualified and registered percentage too. Out of the 16 advisers we checked up on, only four were registered with the appropriate institutes. The rest came up red – meaning the institute had no record of them.

Worrying isn´t it? Offshore companies can try to claim they are international financial advisers, but actually be unregulated and unqualified to carry out the very service they offer! The “advisory” firms have flash websites, and some have several offices around Europe and beyond. Their PR is great at scaremongering expats about their pension investments in the lead up to Brexit.

In Spectrum’s ´Deal or no deal´ article number 14, they suggest you marry a Spaniard in order to prepare for Brexit. I´m not sure about you, but I feel that getting hitched to a native to be able to stay in Spain is a pretty drastic measure and definitely more than a little illegal.

Spectrum IFA is just one example of a firm that probably ought to be given a wide berth when transferring your precious pension fund offshore. Safeguard your pension by avoiding unregulated and unqualified firms like this one.

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It may seem daunting when you read that your UK pension could be subjected to extra taxes if we leave the EU on a no-deal basis. You may be thinking that you should transfer into a QROPS quickly, to save on these taxes. But what you really need to know is that a QROPS is not without punitive costs of its own. They can be expensive and unless you have a good lump sum to transfer you could see a huge chunk of your pension pot taken in transfer and set-up fees anyway! Potentially making you worse off.

Unfortunately, until we make a deal or actually go through with Brexit, nothing is very clear for expats. Which leaves us in an uncertain time and situation. This, I understand, may be daunting for many people, but I urge you to take a deep breath before considering any speedy offshore pension transfers. Thousands of people – especially those who have already fallen victim to scammers such as Continental Wealth Management – would give you exactly the same urgent advice.

If you do want to transfer your pension, please heed this advice to safeguard your pension:

Make sure you choose a reputable firm – one that is regulated, insured and employs fully qualified (and registered) advisers.

We did a series of blogs last year on offshore companies and their advisers. The results were extremely worrying. Aside from their blatant disregard for the necessity of these qualifications – due to being offshore – the number of unqualified advisers offshore was cause for serious concern. Many of the firms had not one single qualified and registered adviser on their team.

Qualified & registered? We do not need to be – we are offshore!

Know all the correct questions to ask an adviser before you sign on the dotted line.

A reputable firm will have a fact-find procedure, and adhere to a client’s risk profile.

A reputable firm will have compliance procedure.

A reputable firm will have clear and consistent explanations and justifications for the use of insurance bonds.

Where will your funds be invested, and how will you know if this is in line with your risk profile?

A pension fund should be placed into a low-medium risk investment.

Scammers tend to go for high-risk, professional-investor-only investments as they offer them the best commissions. But a pension fund should have more protection than this. Avoid investments that involve structured notes (like CWM´s Blue Chip notes), UCIS funds (like Blackmore Global), in-house funds, non-standard assets and any ongoing commission-paying investments.

Insurance bonds – often used by scammers – are usually an unnecessary double wrapper on your fund, that costs you more in fees and charges than a straightforward platform, lining the pockets of the scammers – but making your fund smaller.

How much will the fees and charges be? Remember NO pension transfer is free.

Legitimate firms will normally have a small transfer charge and a small annual fee.

Scammers will often be vague about fees and charges, and avoid giving you a straight answer so they can cover up the true figures. These hidden figures can see your pension fund decrease by 25% or even more in some cases.

A reputable firm should offer you regular updates on the progress of your fund.

You should receive an annual review and a quarterly update showing the fees, charges and growth of your fund.

If your new firm and adviser fail to do this, alarm bells should ring loudly.

Finally, a reputable company will publish evidence to show records of complaints made, rejected or upheld and redress paid.

If the adviser cannot show you all this information, do not trust them.

If it all sounds to good to be true, it probably is – RUN!

Safeguard your pension from the scammers

January 7, 2019

Tag: PREMIER PENSION SOLUTIONS

Kirsten Hastings from International Adviser has published some excerpts from the FCA’s questionnaire about Ark, PPS and AES:

Kirsten Hastings goes on to talk about the history of Stephen Ward’s Ark scam:

Kirsten also mentions some further points in the FCA questionnaire:

All Ark victims would certainly be more than happy to sign a witness statement to evidence what Stephen Ward, PPS and AES did, wrote, promised, assured and persuaded.

Throughout this era – during which all business done by PPS went through AES – Ward ran multiple, multi-£million pension scams – mostly involving liberation fraud:

All these PPS scams resulted in many hundreds more victims losing millions of pounds’ worth of pensions. Many of these unfortunate people were also persuaded by Ward to liberate their pensions, and so they would have faced crippling tax penalties as well.

“Premier Pension Solutions SL …..is an authorised agent of AES Financial Services Ltd authorised to conduct investment and insurance business. AN AES INTERNATIONAL PARTNER.“

This, of course, assumes there is no disruption to the proceedings caused by the Corona virus lockdown.

I can’t comment on the transcripts of the questions and answers on 24th and 25th February, and won’t be able to publish the full details of all cross examinations until all the defendants have appeared before the judge. The defendants on 7th April will be:

CWM’s promotion had always been centered around the iniquitous cold call – but in addition the business plan reveals that Jody Smart’s Grant A Wish “charity” events had been used to “harvest” potential victims at scamming sales parties posing as bona fide fundraising efforts.

Continental Wealth Management Business Plan 2017 (by Dean Stogsdill)

We are now a company where you perform, meet your target or you are replaced.

Mail on Sunday’s Laura Shannon met a group of victims of the Continental Wealth Management scam in Denia in July 2019.

The Spanish regulator has made it clear it is a criminal offence to sell insurance “bonds”.

But how do people avoid getting scammed from now on?

Lastly, make sure you get everything – all costs, fees, charges and commissions – in writing. DON’T GET SCAMMED LIKE THE CONTINENTAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT VICTIMS. They will all give you exactly the same advice.

Fighting pension scams – Qualifications

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

Ark Evergreen Capita Oak Westminster Southlands Headforte

Randwick Estates Bollington Wood Hammerley Halkin Feldspar

Fighting pension scams – why qualifications are so essential

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

Fighting pension scams: Regulation

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

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

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

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

YOU WOULDN’T USE AN UNLICENSED DOCTOR.

SO DON’T USE AN UNLICENSED FINANCIAL ADVISER.

One victim invested £793,612 and has just £62,703 left! Losing a massive £730,909.

Another victim invested £142,626 and has lost £90,618! Leaving him with a fund of just £52,028.

Seems it is no accident that “Generali” is an anagram of “Liar Gene”.

Ten Essential Standards For Pension Advice:

The ongoing war against pension scammers continues with no sign that the end is near. The authorities stand idly by – facilitating mis-selling and outright fraud.

HMRC happily registers pension scam after scam after scam (followed by tax demands). Prosecutions are few and far between.

Ten Essential Standards For Pension Advice:

Much as a master illusionist takes your breath away with his magic, a master scammer takes your money away with his silver tongue. You will be left wondering just how this smart-looking, sleek-talking ‘adviser’ managed to leave your pension – and probably your life – in tatters.

Attention financial advisers in Spain/who provide financial advice to Spanish residents.

DEATH OF THE LIFE BOND:

Why should the use of life bonds be strictly controlled?

Madrid, 10 January 2019 – Complaints service file number 268/2016

Chief Inspector of Unit – Ministry of Economy and Enterprise

Secretary of State for the Economy and Business Support

General Directorate of Insurance and Pension Funds (DGS)

THE DEATH OF THE LIFE BOND

The ethical sector of the financial advice industry will, of course, be delighted – and there will be a mad scramble by the rogues to find a way round this ruling. And they will fail.

The Spanish Insurance Regulator – the DGS (Dirección General de Seguros y Fondos de Pensiones) – has made a most welcome judgment. This outlaws the mis-selling of bogus life assurance policies as investment “platforms” – aka “life bonds”. Read the translated summary below.

Guest of honour will, of course, be Peter Kenny of OMI. But just to make sure nobody feels left out, Hansard and Investors Trust will certainly get their invites. Maybe Wormwood Scrubs will set up their own wing for life-office scammers.

I will be writing to all advisory firms who are selling life bonds to victims in Spain to advise them that this is now a criminal matter and to warn them that they will be reported to the DGS.

If you do want to transfer your pension, please heed this advice to safeguard your pension:

Safeguard your pension from the scammers