From 2010 up to the present day, Old Mutual International has been facilitating financial crime by allowing scammers to misuse and abuse OMI “life bonds” to scam victims out of their life savings.
The victims of the CWM scam are still wondering how the hell they lost an average of 60% of their life savings. Old Mutual International (Quilter) was the provider for the bulk of the life bonds used in the CWM debacle, taking huge amounts of business from unregulated scammers Continental Wealth Management. OMI also paid CWM huge amounts of commission – in the full knowledge that CWM was unregulated and a known, serial scammer.
Pension Life members of the CWM victim group have supplied their figures to us. The losses are huge and we believe that these figures need to be shared with the public so Old Mutual International (OMI) understand and take responsibility for the devastation they have facilitated to the lives of the victims.
Let us hope that Old Mutual International will step up to the plate. The people who work at OMI are human beings, with loved ones. Hopefully, they can imagine how they would feel if this tragedy had happened to one of their loved ones – while the people at OMI stood by and did nothing to stop the devastation. For more than eight years, OMI employees sat on their hands while the so-called investments inside their “insurance bonds” plummeted in value. And OMI did absolutely nothing. Just kept taking their quarterly fees.
OMI will, of course, try to say it was not their fault. That it was down to the advisers appointed by the victims. Or the trustees. Or both. Or the Boogeyman. OMI will claim that they had every right to sit there and watch millions of pounds worth of life savings being wiped off investors’ funds, while continuing to take out their huge quarterly fees.
I wonder how OMI/Quilter directors would feel if this happened to one of their loved ones. Or if someone they cared about had been drowning, and a crowd of people had stood by and watched them die. Because, make no mistake, there will be deaths as a result of this. And the people at OMI will have this on their conscience for the rest of their lives.
OMI’s victims have died. And more are dying. This industry is about people. Let us see if OMI cares about their fellow human beings. Because, so far, there is zero evidence that they give a toss.
I Lost £ 20.000 just transferring my Private pension into a QROPS account with these scammers. Money I had worked hard for all my working life, never asking the Government for a penny.Now with very little left in my pension pot will the Government Help??….NOT even to stop the scammers or even offer them a prison sentence if caught. CWM OMI Laughing at us and rubbing their grubby little hands
I invested £38,000 with CWM as QROPS and it is now worth £4,000.
This is a total scam.
Being one of the victims of CWM / OMI there are no words strong enough to express my anger and frustration. This is a very serious situation that has to stop NOW before thousands more get scammed. The law and legislation is a joke with no support for those whose lives are changed forever with very little chance of ever recovering their losses.7
I agree absolutely. It is utterly disgusting that this was ever allowed to happen in the first place. So-called professionals, regulators and governments taking no action. Until those responsible get prosecuted and jailed, this will just go on happening.
I feel adequate legislation is in place but it is only effective if authorities have the will to enforce it.
The issue is whether OMI had any duty of care to the investors and a legal responsibility to take any action.
Not sure I can see any. Doing “nothing”- what the law terms as “nonfeasance” – does not make a person(s) liable.
For example, a Doctor doing a life-saving operation on you has a duty of care to use his skill with care and not do you any harm through negligence. If however, he then leaves some instrument or swab or whatever inside you and you then get some infection and die from that carelessness he is liable for that negligence.
However, if the operation is cancelled – usual NHS reasons of waiting lists, lack of beds, funds, resources etc. – and he doesn’t do that operation and as a result of the delay you die before it can be rescheduled, then he is not liable.
If donating £100 to a charity saves a child’s life and we choose not to donate the money and the child dies, we are not responsible for that child’s death for “doing nothing” – ie not making a donation – to save that child.
So “[OMI did] … have every right to … do absolutely nothing..”
So generally, doing nothing, whilst it might be morally repugnant, does not confer liability for the outcome.
Now it might be different however if, at the time the “product” (these life bonds) were created – by OMI – it was foreseeable by them that investors would most likely suffer losses from using the wrapper because it was known the marketing of the product was carried out with false misrepresentations by unlicensed advisers, then one might be able to show OMI were liable because they intentionally created a product knowing it could cause financial harm.
That’s my analysis anyway. It’s going to take a clever law firm to get any redress for the victims and a “liability for doing nothing” is (imho) a non-starter. I feel the trustee, who does have a duty of care, is perhaps a better target – similarly the adviser for tort of deceit – https://write.as/scam-victim/tort-of-deceit-and-pension-scams
I have always maintained that a person or company will act if and only if they stand to lose something by not acting (either money or freedom) and success at getting any action is to show they stand to lose something. My advice is show who is highly likely responsible by failing their fiduciary obligation and put together a convincing argument they stand to lose something – then they will act.
That would be a more productive campaign than appealing to people’s “morals”. It’s like attacking people – who also have children – for not donating to charities that saves children, knowing hundreds of children are dying on a daily basis without it.