October 2019

The Bureau of Fair Contracts is a scam. The BOFC is running a follow-on-fraud targeting the victims of the European Property Coin scam. It is highly likely that victims of other scams will be approached by the same people.

A follow-on-fraud occurs where scam victims are contacted by a company claiming to be holding money from the sale of the investments.  All the victim needs to do in order to release the money is to make a payment.

Typically investors are contacted by a company which claims to be working with the Bureau of Fair Contracts.  Scammers have realised that investors are getting wise to their follow-on-frauds so they have added a second layer and even a third layer to the fraud. That’s where the fake Bureau of Fair Contracts comes in.

One of the intended victims of this scam asked for proof of the identity of the director of the company. He was sent this passport copy which is allegedly that of [NAME REDACTED].

The most bizarre series of events then occurred. We originally posted this passport image in full but we were contacted two days later by the family of this man who informed us that the passport was that of their father and that he was not well.  He has an illness which is well known and affects many people as they get older.

We believe this too be true and that the man concerned was not aware of his actions. He had been tricked into paying money to these scammers and had sent them a copy of his passport when they requested it. The man concerned has been knighted in the UK so genuinely has “Sir” as his title instead of “Mr”. He does not remember much about this event although it only took place a few weeks ago. Scammers are heartless, shameful people.  We have now removed the identifying parts of the passport except for the passport number. If anyone receives any passport copy with this number they will know it is a scam. The family have now cancelled the passport but that will not stop the scammers from using it.

Bureau of Fair Contracts_fake Passport ID3

If you would like to read the letter sent out by the BOFC it is here on this link. Client details have been removed by us to protect the client’s identity. Bureau of Fair Contracts_Letter_Redacted

The BOFC website was registered on 3^rd October 2019 i.e three weeks ago. This is a clear indication that the Bureau of Fair Contracts is a scam.

DO NOT PAY THEM ANY MONEY. If you are approached please inform your local law enforcement agency.

To view the previous post on European Property Coin please click on this link.  This was a three layer follow-on-fraud which involved the initial approach by europropertycoin which was then followed by Ryde Asset Management and then by the Bureau of Fair Contracts. They’ve put a lot of effort into this. We’re really glad we are able to draw attention to it before too many investors are caught.

Airborn Investments is running a follow-on-fraud scam against investors in several collapsed investments e.g Essex and London Properties LP, Store First etc.

There is a genuine company called Airborn Investments Ltd which has been in existence in the UK since October 2011. It appears to have had a complete change of management team in March 2019. Lots of director resignations and new appointments.

This company lists its business as “fund management activities”, yet a check on the Financial Conduct Authority register reveals that that the company is not an authorised fund management company. Normally we would expect a fund management company to be registered with the FCA. We don’t know if the Airborn Investments company writing to investors is this one based in Salisbury, or is a clone of that company which is simply using their name and address as a false identity. It does not matter at this stage.  What we know for certain is that the correspondence sent by Airborn Investments is a scam.  It is a follow-on-fraud established with the sole aim of persuading victims to part with more money.

Here is a link to the unsolicited letter sent out by Airborn Investments. Client details have been redacted to protect his/her identity.

Airborn Investments _Redacted

If you receive any emails or letters informing you that your investment has been recovered, been sold or is held in an escrow account, and you just need to pay a fee to release the money then it is undoubtedly a scam.  This letter even uses the logos of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and the Prudential Regulation Authority on its letterheaded paper.

Report the matter to your local law enforcement authority and do not pay any money to any party which claims to have recovered part or all of your investment .

Carlauren Group has a new spokesperson. It is Mr John Joannis. He was the first ever owner of a room with Carlauren Group and allegedly bought rooms at Latimer Lodge. Mr Joannis even owns the restaurant at Latimer Lodge. That’s a bit unusual.

But…. here he is now. Arm in arm with Sean Murray. Leading some kind of promised recovery. We’re not going to rubbish it because we don’t know enough about the proposal. Nobody does. It is very short on detail. We’ve copied their email below and also our response to it. Of course, our response isn’t entirely serious because the Carlauren Group proposal also isn’t entirely serious. It appears to be another attempt to mislead investors.

Further to our recent article on Phenco Ltd and Martin Finch (former director) and Stephen Upton (sizeable creditor), it is now apparent that the Phenco creditors were deceived.

We received an email from Stephen Upton concerning the communication sent out allegedly on his behalf by admin@phenco.co.uk and which was signed by ‘Martin Finch – Phenco Administrator’. Mr Upton wrote to point out that this communication DID NOT come from Martin Finch. According to Mr Upton it came from him.

Mr Upton’s email states “Just for the record, Mr Finch let myself use the email platform to notify my intentions to all the other shareholders, he had no part in this, and as the largest shareholder I have more right than anybody, and will be seeking legal representation, as your actions are unsupported and in my view, are not in the interest of the shareholders. You will be hearing from me in the near future, yours truly Stephen Upton”.

So, if we break down Mr Upton’s email above and the communication which was sent in the name of Martin Finch what does it tell us ?

The communication was signed off in the name of Martin Finch. It used the standard email address that Martin Finch has used for years and finished with “Martin Finch – Phenco Administrator”;

The communication did not say “this email has been written by Stephen Upton”. Neither did it inform creditors that it was not from Martin Finch. In fact it said “…..Phenco Ltd has been dissolved and I’m no longer the managing director….”. That’s a very strange thing for Mr Upton to write considering that he has never been a director of the company, let alone the managing director. There has only ever been one director registered at Companies House and that was Martin Finch. The two shadow directors pulling Mr Finch’s strings have preferred to hide in the background. For the record those shadow directors are Glenn Jamie King and David Alexander Hyman. They have recently been selling more oil shares through Tristone Holdings Ltd and Venture Equity Ltd, operating from the same address as Phenco Ltd.  Caveat Emptor;

“Mr Finch let myself use the email platform…” Firstly, this raises questions over Mr Finch retaining property that should have been handed over to the Official Receiver, namely the list of creditors, and secondly it has data protection implications in that Mr Finch was willing to allow someone access to it;

“Mr Upton is one of you”. As Mr Upton is claiming that he wrote the email shouldn’t that statement have been “I am one of you” ?

There are so many examples that we don’t need to list them all. You can read the full communication yourself on this link.

We do need to clear up some statements though. Mr Upton does not “have more right than anybody”. The Phenco scam affects nearly 200 investors who paid a total of £4.2m into the company. Legally they all have the same rights which includes protection of assets such as oil leases (if they exist) which were bought with their investment money. Nobody, irrespective of the size of their investment, is entitled to interfere in the assets of the company.

When Mr Upton refers to “your actions are unsupported [meaning SOS]” he is writing to the wrong party. SOS did not file the winding up petition. It was filed by Mr John Simson. He was supported by almost 70 other Phenco shareholders. Mr Upton, as a shareholder himself, had the right to oppose the petition by filing a statement of opposition with the court. He did not do so and neither did anyone else. Not one shareholder opposed the petition.

Mr Upton is perfectly entitled to hold the view that the winding up is not in the best interests of shareholders. We hold the opposite view in that a winding up order allows shareholders to investigate the conduct of the director and shadow directors and to take action to recover money unjustly paid to them. Mr Simson also shares that view as do most of the other shareholders.

It is our feeling that Mr Upton has either been brainwashed by the parties who misappropriated the investment funds or is collaborating with them in order to obtain a financial advantage and frustrate the investigation of the Official Receiver. We believe it is the former.

Mr Upton has stepped forward in an attempt to protect Martin Finch by claiming that “….he [Martin Finch] had no part in this…”.  We do not understand why he would make this statement because it is our belief that Martin Finch DID write that communication and he DID send it out under his own name. By Stephen Upton claiming that he wrote the communication and then sent it out he is making himself look rather silly. He is clearly not telling the truth and has made the situation worse. We do not believe for one moment that Stephen Upton wrote that communication.

Mr Simson has written to Mr Upton disputing some of the statements attributed to him in the communication and, in an effort to prevent Mr Upton from getting into further trouble has, in a polite and caring way as he is a Christian Lay Preacher, advised him to seek legal advice before he takes any further action and potentially digs himself into a deeper hole.

As a result of the Martin Finch communication to investors the matter was escalated by the Official Receiver to the Office of the Secretary of State who immediately agreed to the appointment of Quantuma LLP as liquidator of Phenco Ltd. Creditors can expect to be formally advised of this appointment in the near future.

There is no doubt that Mr Upton has lost a large sum of money to this scam. It is a truly terrible position for any investor to find themselves in and it can make people do things they later regret. We can only hope that Mr Upton instructs a legal representative who will point out a few home truths about this scam investment.

To view a more recent update on Phenco and the Martin Finch oil scams please click here.

The battle over Park First continues with the current administrators, Smith & Williamson, trying to force through a CVA, whilst investors and investor representatives (e.g Quantuma LLP and Dow Schofield Watts) are seeking to liquidate the assets and recover the missing funds from wherever they have ended up. The question is what is best for investors – CVA or liquidation ?

Smith & Williamson (“S&W”), the administration firm appointed by the Park First companies, has been to court to apply for an extension of the time allowed for them to hold a further meeting of creditors.

The new meeting of creditors will be held on the 25^th November 2019.  Investors will once again be asked to consider the S&W proposals. These proposals allow for the companies to enter into a CVA, giving control of the businesses back to the directors.  This is despite there still being no clarification from S&W as to what has happened to more than £115m of investor monies.

S&W released a circular to creditors on 9 October 2019 confirming the meeting date and set out their view of the proposed modifications to the S&W proposals. These modifications were submitted on behalf of many investors.  The modifications were for the companies to enter into liquidation and for liquidators to be appointed.  The Administrators (S&W) stated in their circular to creditors that they believed a liquidation was not the best outcome for investors.

This view is heavily disputed by parties acting on behalf of investors.  They claim a liquidation with new independent insolvency practitioners appointed as liquidators is the best outcome for investors for the following reasons:

1. S&W has historically acted for the companies in providing financial advice and has received significant fees for this work.  There is a question mark over their impartiality in this matter;
2. S&W were appointed by the directors.  In circumstances where thousands of individual investors have invested hundreds of millions of pounds into an illegal investment scheme and the FCA have intervened with allegations of impropriety on the part of the directors, the administration of these companies has to be conducted in an entirely open manner and with the investors’ and other creditors’ full knowledge and consent.  They claim to be aware of numerous instances where the Administrators have failed to respond to investors queries or have stated that they do not intend to respond to the queries.
3. There is strong evidence to suggest that the directors have been guilty of wrongdoing whilst trading the companies.  Large sums of investors’ money may have been transferred out of the companies to directors or connected companies. This needs to be investigated by an independent liquidator and action taken.  A Supervisor (the official term for the Insolvency Practitioner who controls the CVA process which in this case is S&W), does not have powers to clawback assets and monies for the benefit of investors.  This has not been made clear to investors by S&W.
4. A CVA is not appropriate in this instance due to the investigations into the directors’ conduct that are clearly required.  The FCA confirmed on 17 October 2019 that they are taking action against the management and connected companies for compensation and also injunctions so that those individuals cannot act in this capacity again.  S&W have not confirmed how this affects their plans to issue a CVA proposal.  See this link to the FCA announcement
5. The Administrators have not provided full and frank disclosure to creditors with regard to the £32m currently held in an escrow account which they have wrongly stated is only available in a CVA.  The FCA have confirmed to both creditors and investor representatives that this is not the case and the funds would be available in a liquidation, subject to a court order being granted.  S&W misled investors and has not made any effort to correct the error.
6. In a CVA the car parks would not be sold for the benefit of investors, they would remain under the control of the existing directors. In a liquidation they would be sold and the proceeds available for distribution to investors.
7. A CVA hands back control of the Company to the directors. A liquidation ensures a thorough investigation into the conduct of the directors and the directors have no capacity to continue to trade.
8. Administrators have to believe that a statutory objective is capable of being achieved (this is a legal requirement) otherwise an administration is inappropriate.  As a CVA does not appear to be viable there is no reason for the Companies to remain in administration.  By remaining in administration significant costs are being incurred to the detriment to creditors.  Those costs are predominantly for the services of S&W for which there appears to be no benefit to creditors.  No detailed alternative to a CVA has been suggested by the Administrators.  The Administrators’ proposals failed to provide a balanced and detailed appraisal of the position and the options available to investors.
9. S&W has failed to send a list of creditors names and addresses with the proposals. This is a legal requirement and they have not provided any valid reason for failing to provide this.  Despite numerous requests from investors and investor representatives the Administrators are refusing to supply the list. The natural conclusion is that this has been done to make it more difficult for creditors to form working groups and be contacted by professional advisers who may be able to assist them.

S&W also failed to present the proposed modifications adequately to the meeting of creditors on 1 October 2019.  An appointed liquidator can not only investigate the conduct of the directors, but can also investigate the conduct and actions of any former Administrators.

Due to the reasons set out above and there being no other proposed solution we have come to the conclusion that a liquidation is the best outcome for investors.  It allows for recovery actions against the parties responsible for the huge black hole in the companies’ accounts.

S&W has confirmed that it has made an application to court (hearing date is set for 4 November 2019) for directions on how creditors’ claims are valued and treated for voting purposes and for directions confirming that they are not required to release a creditors’ list.

Investors should be very concerned about the content of these applications and the impact they have on the investors’ ability to claim for any balance owed to them.

We are working with Quantuma, Dow Schofield Watts and legal advisors on how to ensure investors have a voice at the hearing on 4 November and ensure the rights of investors are not prejudiced by any actions of the administrators.

A further update on the proposed action relating to the court hearing on the 4th November will be provided soon.

We are aware that the directors of the Companies are approaching investors by telephone and email attempting to persuade them to accept the administrators’ proposals.  The directors have no power to do so and we encourage you to provide details of any such approach to Quantuma or Dow Schofield Watts (emails below).

If any investor has not already done so we recommend that you make direct contact with either mark.hendrick@quantuma.com or lisa@dswrecovery.com.  They will be able to clarify any points in respect of the rights of Park First investors.

To view our previous article on Park First please click here

The disgraced Phenco director, Martin Finch, is still covering up the misappropriation of investor funds.  He has written to investors on an admin@phenco.co.uk email address to advise them that Phenco Ltd has been dissolved and that Mr Stephen Upton, a creditor of the company, will be taking over the assets of the company.

Both Mr Finch and Mr Upton are committing a criminal offence in pursuing this course of action.  Phenco Ltd has not been dissolved.  The company remains in existence and is currently controlled by the Official Receiver, a UK government appointment.  All the assets of Phenco Ltd, which includes any money, oil leases and contracts are now owned by the Official Receiver for the benefit of all creditors.  Neither Martin Finch nor any other party is entitled to interfere with those assets.  It is a criminal offence to do so.  Safe Or Scam represents several investors in Phenco Ltd and will push for a prosecution of offenders should any party seek to diminish the asset position of our clients.

If any genuine contracts exist in the USA the liquidator now owns them on behalf of all creditors. Any revenues generated by any oil leases will continue to be paid into Phenco bank accounts. Those bank accounts are still in operation but are now controlled by the Official Receiver. Creditors have not lost anything through the company being taken over by the Official Receiver.

Martin Finch is committing an offence by  continuing to use the admin@phenco.co.uk email address and by spreading false information to creditors.  He describes himself in the email as “Phenco Administrator”.  It is a serious offence to claim to be the Administrator of a company once it is under the control of a court-appointed organisation.  However, it is not a surprise that Martin Finch continues to mislead investors because he and his US counterparties are under investigation and will make every effort to cover up the crime and mislead investors.

Martin Finch is the director of five oil companies which are all scams.  A recent court hearing for another of his companies was told that 81% of investor monies was paid out in commissions and fees with only 19% being allocated to the actual investment in the USA.  We believe Phenco is likely to be exactly the same.  It is the role of the Official Receiver, or other independent liquidation firm, to obtain the best possible outcome for all investors.  If Mr Upton has a proposal to make he should do so to the Official Receiver.  He can and will be prosecuted if he seeks to circumvent the court-appointed liquidator of the company.

Mr Stephen Upton is either very naïve or is an opportunist seeking to obtain a financial advantage over other creditors.  Mr Finch’s letter makes false accusations against another creditor, John Simson, who is seeking a full investigation into the finances of the company and a forensic audit of the bank accounts.  Mr Finch’s letter is copied in full below.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Martin Finch is the disgraced Phenco director who is still covering up his misfeasance, but the evidence against him is mounting.  Safe Or Scam has also been gathering evidence on the activities of the US counterparties and we expect action to be taken against them in the USA to recover funds. It should be remembered that Mr Rick Coody, the main US partner of Martin Finch, already has a conviction for oil fraud. It is our opinion that Mr Upton is being taken for a fool.

Creditors already own all the assets through the Official Receiver so do not need to do anything until a thorough investigation has been completed. We are recommending that investors contact Stella Hardcastle of Quantuma, her details are here on this link, to register their support for Quantuma to take over the investigation from the Official Receiver. Quantuma have a forensic accounting division which will be able to analyse the money trail and recover funds that have been unjustly paid to some of the parties involved. We already know that very large sums were paid to the shadow directors who were using Martin Finch as their willing front man.

Mr Upton’s time would be better spent requesting Martin Finch to provide him with a breakdown of where his investment money was sent instead of interfering in an investigation which we believe will result in a successful prosecution of the perpetrators of this scam.

To view our previous article on Phenco Ltd and Martin Finch please click here.   

This article is a warning about the Global Capital Holdings scam. The company is running a follow-on-fraud against people who have already been the victims of a fraud. In this case the scam is aimed at investors in Essex and London Properties LP, a bogus property investment bond which collapsed two years ago and has been subject to UK police investigation.

Safe Or Scam is working with a UK law firm on a recovery action associated with the Essex and London Properties investment. The opponent in the action is regarded as having played a key part in enabling the fraud to have taken place. There is a link at the bottom of the page.

We have copied the text of a recent Global Capital Holdings letter below. It is entirely possible that victims in other scams have received similar letters because the perpetrators of scams are often involved in more than one. Whilst the scams may seem to be entirely separate the same people often appear behind the scenes in many of them. This link will take you to the pdf version of the letter  Global Capital Holdings 2

We write to inform you that Global Capital Holdings have been appointed as the trusted third party agents for the recovery of assets and funds held stagnant by the unfortunate liquidation of Essex and London Properties Limited. We have been provided a full comprehensive list of private and corporate clients by the Insolvency Service for those seeking to retrieve their invested capital held by the company.
As you will have been made aware, the closure of Essex and London Properties Limited subsequently means the onus now lies with yourself, as the legal owner of the asset, to aim to secure an exit solution prior to the deadline for Seizure of Ownership in line with the guidelines of the Insolvency Service.
An audit conducted by the Financial Ombudsman Service late last year recorded at least 73% of the trades conducted by the defunct company Essex and London Properties Limited failed to fulfil their contractual obligations to their clients, with less than 20% of private clients being able to successfully trade out of the market and have their initial investment and profits returned. It is imperative that we locate the assets of any remaining clients as a matter of urgency and seek an immediate sale.
Global Capital Holdings is now representing all affected parties and offering potential available exit strategies to enable clients to trade out of the market this however does not by any means guarantee that we will be able to ensure profits can be gained upon the retrieval of any assets sold. All exit strategies operate on a first come, first serve basis. Please note that allocation on any of our coordinated exit strategies will only last for up to 7 working days so your cooperation and efficiency in securing your position is of the utmost importance
Our expertise in this field span many years and our empathetic team has a wealth of experience in financial recoyery, financial seryices and legal support. Understanding that the apparent loss of funds can be both concerning and frustrating it is our duty to walk you through the process, ensuring you understand the process involved in recovering assets and finally getting you out of the market. In order to ascertain whether we would be able to act as your agent in this capacity, you would first need to satisfy verification checks and we invite you to get in contact on 0203 285 8308 to find out if you meet the guidelines for retrieval. We have allocated an experienced team in our Asset Recuperation Division to aid you in this process, to discuss your file with them please call at your earliest convenience.
Yours faithfully,
Faisal Lalani Director

The company details are given as: Global Capital Holdings Limited, Email: info@globalcapitalholdings.com.  Tel: 0203 285 8308.  Address: Tower 42, 25 Old Broad Street, Lime Street, London, EC2N 1HN, United Kingdom.  Company Registration number: 10646614

This is a scam letter aimed at persuading victims to part with more money. If you are the victim of a scam and you have received a letter related to Global Capital Holdings scam please make contact.

To view our recent article on Essex and London Properties please click here

Vital Corporate Solutions in Dubai is a Money Mule company assisting fraudsters in stealing money from members of the public.

Safe Or Scam will shortly be publishing a new page showing bank account names, account numbers and sort codes suspected of being involved in scams, dishonest investments or follow-on frauds. The aim of the page will be to warn the general public that these accounts and the people behind them have been involved in known scams and they should be very wary of paying any money into those bank accounts. The first one on the list is given below.

Follow-on frauds are cases where a person has been the victim of a scam and is then contacted by another organisation claiming that they have been able to sell their investment, or have buyers ready to purchase, or have been appointed by a liquidator. In every case they will ask the victim to pay money upfront to release the funds that they claim to hold.

Money mules are people or companies who collect money on behalf of the scammers. They act as a cut-out to prevent victims from finding out the final recipient of their funds. They are rewarded handsomely for their part in the scam. In our view they are an integral part of the scam and are fair game when they come under our spotlight. In some cases they may be innocent parties whose details may have been cloned so we approach those parties in a respectful way requesting clarification. Innocent parties are always happy to help. If they are not willing to help that speaks volumes and is a sign that they were involved in the scam.

One recent party we contacted was Vital Corporate Solutions based in Dubai. The following bank account was used in a scam we are investigating:

Bank Name: ADCB Bank

Account Name: Vital Corporate Solutions

Account Number: 714368348001

IBAN: AE670030000714368348001

We wrote to the owner of the company – Ms Amanda Perry. The tone of our letter was very polite. Here are some extracts:

“You would appear from your website to be honest people running an honest business. We are therefore contacting you on the assumption that you would genuinely wish to help a person who has been the victim of a scam”.

“Firstly, we would like to ask you to confirm that this bank account does (or did) belong to you. It is quite possible that the party responsible has used your company name in order to throw our client off the scent.

Secondly, if the account does (or did) belong to you, please can you provide a skype address so that we can speak with you on a strictly confidential basis”.

Ms Perry did not respond to our email. We sent a second email. Here are some extracts:

The answer to my enquiry is very simple. It is “Yes, that is (was) our bank account” or “No, that is not (was not) our bank account”.

“….we take a simplistic view of situation like this. You are either supporting the victims or you are supporting the fraudsters”.

Ms Perry did not respond to our second email so we assume she has taken the decision to support the fraudsters.

We sent her a third email. Here are some extracts:

“Dear Ms Perry,

On the basis that you have not responded to enquiries about a bank account used in a fraud we have changed our opinion of your company and now believe that your company plays an important role in assisting fraudsters.

We [intend (our shortening)] to publish our emails to you, your responses to those emails (as yet no response), our explanation on how money mule companies work i.e by providing their bank accounts for fraudsters to use, acting to frustrate fraud victims from recovering funds and being well very rewarded for providing these services. We will also undertake a full review of your website and the people involved.

Our investigations, blogs and websites are in the public interest because exposing fraud and the people associated with fraud is important in warning and protecting the general public.

We will write to you in advance of each article to give you an opportunity to correct any errors. We are also happy to adopt a balanced approach and publish your version of events”.

The entire contents of this article was forwarded to Ms Perry to allow her to comment and to correct any errors or false statements prior to its publishing. She has chosen not to comment. 

We have downloaded the pages of the Vital Corporate Solutions website and will be publishing extracts in future articles. We warn potential clients of Vital Corporate Solutions to be on their guard against the theft of their money. Vital Corporate Solutions in Dubai is a money mule.

We are very aggressive in our approach to known money mules. They are parties to a scam and if they will not co-operate we will seek to recover our client’s total loss from the assets of the money mule. We will be focused on recovering a very large sum of money from Ms Amanda Perry and any other person at her firm who assisted the fraud in any way.

We would like to hear from anyone who has had any interaction or business transaction with Vital Corporate Solutions based in Dubai.

To view the next article on Vital Corporate Solutions please click here.

Europropertycoin.com is a scam operation founded by the same fraudsters who were behind the fake digital currency known as European Property Coin. The original scam was initially perpetrated by Florian Pierini, a man we can now link to more than one scam. This original scam was operated by a company called Clear View Marketing Services Ltd. It was exposed by a Safe Or Scam investigation and we have since helped investors to close down the company. Our investigation is continuing and we expect criminal charges to follow against the people involved.

Unfortunately, when an investor has lost money in a scam that is not the end of the story. They are often approached by follow-on-frauds. At the moment there are several of these doing the rounds, one of which is allegedly Ryde Asset Management working in partnership with the scam europropertycoin.com.

Until 9th October 2019 there was a company in the UK called Ryde Asset Management Ltd, but on that date it changed its name to Rydeam Ltd. We do not know if this is the company sending out emails and making phone calls to investors. Quite often the scammers will use the identity of a genuine company to mask their illegal activities, but what we do know is that someone using that name has been contacting investors.

Here’s the scam:

Europropertycoin.com contacts its list of investors telling them that they are now in a position to sell the bogus coins for them. Of course, the coins always were entirely fake and do not exist but investors understandably are often willing to listen to anyone who offers them a means of recovering their money. It is sometimes very hard to accept that you have been scammed.

Here is the text of their email:

We particularly like the final paragraph which makes it clear that they “did not send a letter to clients regarding EPC or an escrow account”. Of course they did. They just didn’t get many investors who were fooled by that approach so they have now come up with a new one. This new approach is that they want to offer the poor investors a chance to sell via a new “mobile app/wallet”. At some point they are going to ask investors to pay because they are only doing this for one reason – to get more money from investors.

The next step is they arrange for David Simmons (he is using a false name) from Ryde Asset Management to give the investor a call.

David Simmons, Ryde Asset Management, – Email: info@rydeassetmanagement.com  –  Tel: 0203 051 8813

He tells investors that the app will be available on all major app stores when released and that they will be able to trade multiple digital currencies. They still haven’t asked investors for any money yet…..

BUT THEN THEY DO. The investor gets a call (remember that the investor has never given out his/her phone number but these guys already have it because they are part of the original scam). It’s not very often that we are able to smile when we are exposing scams but this one gave us a good laugh. Investors will receive a call from “The Bureau of Fair Contracts”.

There isn’t a Bureau of Fair Contracts, but we love the title and we think all countries should set one up. Anyway, this representative from the Bureau of Fair Contracts has contacted the investor because they have good news. They have sold the fake coins! All they need the investor to do is to pay “a Security Bond” of 25% of the money they hold and then they can release all of the funds from the buyer.

So….. first of all europropertycoin.com told the investor that things would be set up in 14 days, then Ryde Asset Management told them that an app was being developed but wasn’t ready, and finally the Bureau of Fair Contracts phones up to say that the coins have been sold and they have the money. These guys are so desperate to squeeze more money out of investors they just can’t wait. They have to get investors to pay right now.

Just for clarity – europropertycoin.com is a scam. Ryde Asset Management is a scam. The Bureau of Fair Contracts is a scam. European Property Coin was a scam from day one. Florian Pierini is a scammer linked to other scams. If you are an investor who has lost money in any scam you are going to get these kinds of approaches from follow-on-fraudsters. DO NOT PAY ANY MONEY TO THEM. 

To view the link to the Companies House website proving that the company which owned and operated European Property Coin was closed down please click here

To view our previous article on the European Property Coin scam please click here

Today it has been reported that the Carlauren Group owner declined a BBC interview regarding the Windlestone Hall and Highnam Hotel scandals.  Both properties are located in the North-East of England and attracted the attention of the local BBC news team.  The BBC confirms they made repeated requests to the Carlauren Group Chief Executive, Sean Murray, for an interview, but he declined to be interviewed citing the impending court case against the company as his reason.

The BBC online report can be viewed here.  Safe Or Scam understands there will be a 10-minute TV report on both properties on the evening of 14th October 2019.  We will post a link to the TV report for those investors who were unable to view it the first time around.

To view our previous article on Carlauren Group please click here.

LATE ADDITION:  The TV report can now be viewed on this link.