Tag: Utmost Worldwide

Pension Scams Explained
Every offshore pension scam starts with a “financial advisor”. Or, at least, a slick salesman posing as a financial adviser. This person can also call himself a “wealth consultant” or “senior associate”.

After the scammer pretending to be an adviser, the next player is the life office. More accurately described as a “death” office, this type of insurance company pollutes and corrupts financial services by ensuring three things:

Few so-called “financial advisers” offshore are truly independent. They are tied to – and dependent on – the life offices for fat, abusive and undeserved commissions.
There is virtually no such thing offshore as providing proper qualified advice – only selling products for commission. Products recommended to the victim are chosen because they pay the most commissions – rather than because they are in the investor’s interests.
The victim will be placed into a “death bond” – also known as a life bond, offshore bond, portfolio bond, insurance bond or wrapper. This toxic, high-risk, expensive and unnecessary product serves only one purpose: to pay a hidden commission to the so-called adviser.

Death bond providers (also known as “life” offices) have facilitated vast amounts of fraud for well over a decade. This has resulted in the destruction of hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of pensions and life savings across Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia and beyond.

With the recent merging of RL360 and FPI, as well as Utmost and Quilter, this trend is set to increase.

The only way to protect consumers from being defrauded in the next decade is to educate them. The next raft of potential victims needs to be warned, informed, educated and prepared – so they too don’t fall victim to the death offices and their associates.

Here we recreate a typical exchange between a potential victim and a salesman posing as an adviser. Watch and learn; read and weep. This is what has already happened to thousands of expats. Don’t be the next victim conned by a fraudster and a death office.

Introducing Darren Blacklee-Smith of High Assets Wealth and John Carson – a builder who moved to sunny Spain to retire early.

Darren: Nice to meet you John. So, you want to move your frozen pension out of the UK as you now live in Spain?

John: Yes, I’ve been in Spain a few years now, with Brexit and everything, I’m not sure I should leave my pension where it is.

Darren: Very wise to look at your options. Your pension would probably be better off in a QROPS because it would be looked after better, would be cheaper to manage, you’d pay less tax, and you wouldn’t risk losing half of it when you die. Best of all, you’d get to choose your own pension investments!

DING! This is the first warning sign. The old “you’d pay less tax” trick… normally it’s the hook, line and sinker for this type of scam. Who doesn’t want to pay less tax after a lifetime of it? However, the so-called “lower tax charges” are nothing compared to the hidden commissions on the death bond and the toxic investments.

John: That all sounds like it would be better for me in the long run – and cheaper. So where would I move my pension to?

Darren: We’d recommend a QROPS in Malta as this is one of the best countries to move your pension to. It is a safe place for your pension to be looked after properly.

DING DING!! Malta was a prolific harbour for pension scams for a decade. It was a grey area, making it easy for scammers to make as much money as possible. The Malta regulator has tried to tighten up the regulations to prevent further scams, but the scammers always find a new loophole.

John: So how much would all this cost me?

Darren: My firm would charge you a small fee for setting up the transfer and then looking after your pension investments moving forwards.

DING DING DING!!! Oh how he makes it sound so simple! The fees that these advisors take are hefty. And they are not the only charges that will contribute to the destruction of the pension – because of the hidden commissions.

John: Sorry to ask this question, but how is your firm qualified or licensed, or whatever, to look after my pension investments?

Darren: Very important question to ask John – and I am more than happy to give you all the information you need to be comfortable that we are fully licensed.

DING DING DING DING!!!!You can look up any company or person’s license to verify if they’re actually registered or not. But most consumers don’t know how to do this.

John: Oh, I’m glad about that – I didn’t want to offend you, but you do hear stories don’t you…..

Darren: Absolutely. Now, we’re fully regulated and I’m fully qualified. It’s all on our website and here’s my business card and you can see all my qualifications.

John: I’m glad about that. I worked for thirty years to build up that pension and I don’t want anything to happen to it. The wife and I moved to Spain to have a comfortable retirement, and I need to make sure I’m making the right decision.

Darren: Absolutely. Definitely. So, let’s look at all the ways you can improve your pension and make sure its protected. The first question to ask is whether you want tax efficiency? You don’t want to pay too much tax do you?

John: I’ve paid tax all my life, so I feel I’ve paid my dues. I definitely don’t want to pay too much once I’m retired because every penny is going to count.

Darren: Well, that’s why we often recommend our clients should use a tax-efficient insurance bond, like Quilter. This is one of the World’s biggest insurance companies and this will not only protect your pension, but will also make sure you don’t pay too much tax.

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!! And this is the most dangerous part. Quilter will almost certainly be the death of your pension. A bond is not suitable for a pension. It is way too expensive and inflexible. And provides no tax advantages within a pension for someone living offshore.

John: That sounds great. So how do we go about this? How do we get the ball rolling, and what do you need me to do?

Darren: Right, I’ve got some forms for you to sign……we’ll need to get your pension transferred over to Malta, and then open up the insurance bond. And then we can start investing your pension and making it grow – so you’ll be able to have a happy and healthy retirement.

Darren: So, this is the transfer application, sign here…..

John: Ooh, not sure if I’ve got a pen…..

Darren: Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty!

This will complete the first stage in the pension scam process. It is a condensed version, as it can take weeks or months of email/phone exchanges. But the result is usually the same: Loss and destruction of the pension.

The scammer posing as an adviser hasn’t explained or revealed the charges and commissions. And he hasn’t told the victim how inflexible the bond is or how it provides no protection or tax savings in reality. And now the scammer has a signed, blank dealing instruction so he can proceed to invest the victim’s pension in high-risk, high-commission investments provided by the death office.
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March 30, 2022
Utmost Fraud approved by EU Commission

Utmost (formerly Generali) is proposing buying Quilter (formerly Old Mutual). The deal is due to be completed by December 2021. The agreed price is nearly half a billion pounds. It is reported that Margrethe Vestager, Vice President of the European Commission, has “approved” this acquisition.

Margrethe Vestager – EU Commissioner Executive Vice President

The “approval” by the European Commission of this deal is an insult to thousands of victims of pension and investment fraud. Widespread financial crime has been facilitated, encouraged and rewarded by Utmost and Quilter over the past decade. The appalling result has been the destruction of millions of pounds’ worth of life savings and pensions.

Margrethe Vestager, EU Commissioner Executive Vice President, has proved that the Commission hasn’t got a clue about Utmost’s and Quilter’s role in offshore financial services fraud. And this deal between these two death offices will create a monopoly over fraud against expats in Europe.

For death offices – such as Utmost and Quilter – fraud against expats is clearly a lucrative business with a huge market. The horrific damage – including distress, poverty and suicide – gives neither Utmost’s CEO Paul Thompson nor Quilter’s CEO Paul Feeney any cause for concern. Thompson has described the proposed acquisition as:

“highly attractive and in line with our growth strategy”.

But growing an industry based on fraud should neither be countenanced by the European Commission – nor the European Markets and Securities Authority.

Paul Feeney CEO of Quilter

Paul Thompson CEO of Utmost

Utmost Fraud approved by EU Commission

Utmost announced the planned takeover in April 2021. CEO Paul Thompson has bragged this would add £22 billion and 90,000 policies to its existing portfolio. This would give the Utmost/Quilter combo a total of £58 billion of funds. And much of this will have been acquired through fraud. It will also give them 600,000 “customers”. And many of these will have been victims of fraud – some of them currently on the verge of suicide.

The toxic assets and suicidal victims result from Utmost’s and Quilter’s long-standing practice of giving terms of business to unlicensed scammers. These death offices have paid huge, undeserved and undisclosed commissions to these scammers for more than a decade. And there is no sign that there is any intention to pay redress to the thousands of victims who have lost their life savings and pensions in death bonds.

The Commission’s approval of this iniquitous acquisition is a grave insult to Utmost’s and Quilter’s existing victims. It also puts thousands of British expats across Europe at risk of becoming future victims of the fraudsters to whom the death offices give terms of business.

There are three clear strands to the fraud with which both Utmost and Quilter are undeniably complicit:

1. The insurance bond – also known as a life, portfolio, or offshore bond. This is the core “product” routinely used and abused by the unethical sector of the offshore financial services market. This toxic sector – which includes many known scammers – sells products and not advice. Bonds can – under certain, limited circumstances – play a valid tax-mitigation role in the UK. But offshore, they serve zero purpose – other than to pay commissions to many unauthorised introducers and fraudsters posing as advisers. Insurance bonds should never be used with offshore pensions (QROPS) since the pension is already a tax “wrapper” in its own right.

2. The terms of the insurance bonds are clearly abusive to consumers as retail, inexperienced investors. The high charges are mostly for the purpose of clawing back the concealed commissions paid to the introducers (many of whom are unauthorised). Utmost and Quilter had known for years that large numbers of these introducers had no license to provide insurance mediation or investment advice. They had also known that these same introducers had long-established track records of mis-selling and fraud. And yet Utmost and Quilter continued to give them terms of business. They allowed them to invest thousands of victims’ pensions and life savings recklessly – and disastrously.

3. The toxic, illiquid, high-risk “investments” offered by the death offices. These products were offered on the death offices’ platforms for the scammers to sell to their victims. Investment products have included dozens of failed funds such as LM, Axiom, Premier New Earth, Quadris Forestry and Kijani. Worse still are the professional-investor-only structured notes supplied by Leonteq, Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada and Nomura.

This toxic “triptych” has resulted in horrific losses for thousands of victims over the past ten years. And if this iniquitous acquisition goes ahead, there will be just as many – if not more – casualties in the next ten years. The EU Commission – along with ESMA – will be complicit.

Of course, I might be entirely wrong: Utmost’s half a billion might have been subject to a sequestration deal enforced by the Commission. Perhaps this money is going to be used to repay all the victims the hard-earned money they have lost? And any surplus used to prosecute the dozens of fraudsters to whom the death offices had given terms of business? (Sadly, I am not often wrong).

Death offices Utmost and Quilter (as well as FPI and RL360) have routinely given terms of business to known scammers and unlicensed salesmen posing as advisers since 2010. They have created a toxic industry of selling dodgy products – not professional financial advice. The result has been predictably awful. Victims have paid the price with poverty and misery in retirement. Utmost’s acquisition of Quilter is likely to result in a huge increase in this widespread crime.

The facts behind this perilous situation are irrefutable. Quilter itself is suing Leonteq for £200 million for just one series of high-risk structured notes. This was for an extra 2% hidden commission on top of the 6% hidden commission allowed by Quilter. Chief Executives Peter Kenny and Paul Feeney know that these toxic products should never have been promoted to retail, naive investors. Kenny and Feeney are fully aware that their unlicensed introducers will sell any toxic and high-commission crap to their victims.

John Ferguson (left) & David Vilka (right) of Square Mile International

In 2016, Quilter provided hundreds of these toxic Leonteq structured notes (with total concealed commissions of up to 14.57%) to distributors such as Satori, Mayfields and Morgan Capital. Quilter also sold these notes to known, serial scammers Square Mile International. In the same year, Utmost sold the same Leonteq notes with hidden commissions of over 12%.

Utmost Fraud approved by EU Commission

The EU Commission needs to understand why Utmost’s proposed acquisition should not go ahead. In their Introducer Terms of Business Agreement, Utmost opens with a false statement:

“Following completion of due diligence we are pleased to confirm your terms of business have been authorised on the following commission basis”.

But there is no due diligence. There are no checks on how the firms are licensed, or whether any of the staff or sub agents are qualified to provide insurance or investment advice. And certainly no acknowledgement that the commissions must be openly disclosed to the victims.

The starting point for the hidden commissions is that 140% of the victims’ portfolio will form the basis for the payment. A fact which is never disclosed to the victims.

The Utmost Introducer Agreement requests details of the applicant’s experience and qualifications, in addition to membership of professional bodies or trade associations. The application form also asks for confirmation of regulatory status in the markets where the firm operates. They also ask for details and proof of professional indemnity insurance. Therefore, Utmost acknowledges that these are essential factors for a legitimate introducer. They willingly enter into terms of business with many unlicensed, unqualified scammers. These scammers have no experience, qualifications, membership of professional bodies or trade associations, and no essential regulatory status. They also have no professional indemnity insurance.

In 2014, Utmost accepted one bond application from a victim resident in Spain. Her “adviser” (introducer) had no license to provide either insurance mediation or investment advice anywhere in Europe. And yet Utmost gave this firm complete freedom to invest the victim’s funds – accepting 19 separate investment dealing instructions (mostly with forged client signatures) totalling 529,251.80 Euros. All of the investments were professional-investor-only, high-risk structured notes provided by Leonteq, Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada and Nomura. Between 2014 and 2018, Utmost and the scammer between them destroyed over 75% of the victim’s fund. The destruction was caused by repeated structured note failures and the inexorable high charges by Utmost. When the victim finally took out what little was left, Utmost charged her a hefty early-exit penalty. There was no recognition of the horrific destruction Utmost had facilitated.

Criminal proceedings against this, and other associated firms, are now in progress in Spain. However, the main lead complainant – also an Utmost victim who lost most of his portfolio – has recently died. Much of his life savings and pension – which started out at three quarters of a million pounds – were destroyed by Utmost and the scammer. The causes of the losses were not only the toxic structured notes but also some unregulated, professional-investor-only funds such as the Quadris Brazilian Teak Forestry Fund. The deceased victim’s disabled widow is now facing poverty on top of bereavement.

Of course, Quilter has performed just as atrociously as Utmost over the past decade. Thousands of Quilter’s victims are facing similar poverty and suffering at the hands of the same scammers. This fraud is facilitated and rewarded by hidden commissions and the freedom to invest portfolios without the victims’ knowledge, using forged client signatures. With similar callousness, Quilter has allowed the flotsam and jetsam of the offshore cowboys to commit the exact same type of fraud as Utmost has.

One such scammer – with Quilter terms of business – boasts that his qualification to work in financial services is working as a bar manager and managing a successful sales company:

https://pennickblackwell.com/pennick-blackwell-team/

Kristoffer Taft of Pennick Blackwell

(formerly an agent of AES International and now an agent of Abbey Wealth)

If I am wrong, and the Commission has already made arrangements to freeze Utmost’s half a billion pounds, then I apologise unreservedly for doubting you. But if I am right, then the European Commission is just as bad as the death offices and the scammers.

August 17, 2021

Tag: Utmost Worldwide

Pension Scams Explained

With the recent merging of RL360 and FPI, as well as Utmost and Quilter, this trend is set to increase.

Here we recreate a typical exchange between a potential victim and a salesman posing as an adviser. Watch and learn; read and weep. This is what has already happened to thousands of expats. Don’t be the next victim conned by a fraudster and a death office.

DING DING!! Malta was a prolific harbour for pension scams for a decade. It was a grey area, making it easy for scammers to make as much money as possible. The Malta regulator has tried to tighten up the regulations to prevent further scams, but the scammers always find a new loophole.

DING DING DING!!! Oh how he makes it sound so simple! The fees that these advisors take are hefty. And they are not the only charges that will contribute to the destruction of the pension – because of the hidden commissions.

DING DING DING DING!!!!You can look up any company or person’s license to verify if they’re actually registered or not. But most consumers don’t know how to do this.

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!! And this is the most dangerous part. Quilter will almost certainly be the death of your pension. A bond is not suitable for a pension. It is way too expensive and inflexible. And provides no tax advantages within a pension for someone living offshore.

This will complete the first stage in the pension scam process. It is a condensed version, as it can take weeks or months of email/phone exchanges. But the result is usually the same: Loss and destruction of the pension.

Share to help prevent pension scams!

Utmost Fraud approved by EU Commission

Utmost (formerly Generali) is proposing buying Quilter (formerly Old Mutual). The deal is due to be completed by December 2021. The agreed price is nearly half a billion pounds. It is reported that Margrethe Vestager, Vice President of the European Commission, has “approved” this acquisition.

But growing an industry based on fraud should neither be countenanced by the European Commission – nor the European Markets and Securities Authority.

Utmost Fraud approved by EU Commission

The Commission’s approval of this iniquitous acquisition is a grave insult to Utmost’s and Quilter’s existing victims. It also puts thousands of British expats across Europe at risk of becoming future victims of the fraudsters to whom the death offices give terms of business.

There are three clear strands to the fraud with which both Utmost and Quilter are undeniably complicit:

This toxic “triptych” has resulted in horrific losses for thousands of victims over the past ten years. And if this iniquitous acquisition goes ahead, there will be just as many – if not more – casualties in the next ten years. The EU Commission – along with ESMA – will be complicit.

Utmost Fraud approved by EU Commission

“Following completion of due diligence we are pleased to confirm your terms of business have been authorised on the following commission basis”.

The starting point for the hidden commissions is that 140% of the victims’ portfolio will form the basis for the payment. A fact which is never disclosed to the victims.

If I am wrong, and the Commission has already made arrangements to freeze Utmost’s half a billion pounds, then I apologise unreservedly for doubting you. But if I am right, then the European Commission is just as bad as the death offices and the scammers.