September 2021

Serious Fraud Office Focus on Property Scams.

In August we reported on the SFO investigation into the investments offered by Gavin Woodhouse of Northern Powerhouse Developments fame. See our article here – LINK.

Now there has been another major announcement by the SFO following dawn raids upon Alpha and Green Park group companies which sold student accommodation and holiday home investments in the UK. According to the SFO Press Release – LINK, the sums involved are in the region of £150m. The majority of investors in these schemes are already involved in legal actions seeking compensation from the parties involved in the formation, operation, promotion and sale of these investments.

The Press Release states:

• The SFO suspects the Alpha-branded companies of fraudulently misleading investors into purchasing leaseholds for student accommodation across the country.
• Green Park-branded companies are suspected to be part of a similar scheme, selling leaseholds for holiday homes in Devon. 

The two recent announcements send a clear message that the Serious Fraud Office has been looking into room sale investment schemes and is prepared to prosecute. The collapse of many of these schemes and the unlawful activities of the company directors is coming under scrutiny at long last. We will be writing to the SFO highlighting other such schemes and also the recovery room activities which investors are often subjected to.

The SFO statement continues:

“Alpha and Green Park branded companies sold investments into leasehold units between 2014 and 2019, promising investors 8-10% returns on their investment over the first 10 years. Over 1,500 investors from around 50 different countries invested an estimated £150 million into the leasehold schemes on the back of these guaranteed returns, but all stopped receiving these in 2018.

Meanwhile, the directors of the companies are thought to have made around £20 million from their schemes.

Commenting on the case, Mick Gallagher, Chief Investigator, Serious Fraud Office, said:

“Thousands of ordinary people lose their pensions or life savings on risky schemes, while those at the top line their own pockets and enjoy a lavish lifestyle. The Serious Fraud Office is committed to delivering justice for victims of fraud and corruption. We invite anyone who believes they have a connection with our investigation to come forward.”

Serious Fraud Office Focus on Property Scams.

Burlington Capital Holdings Scam.

A group of scammers calling itself Burlington Capital Holdings Ltd is carrying out a follow-on-fraud against people who have lost money in investment scams.

Just to be absolutely clear, the genuine company called Burlington Capital Holdings Ltd has nothing to do with this scam.  Its identity has been hijacked by scammers who are pretending to be the genuine company.

The scam group is using an email address of info@burlingtoncap.co.uk.  The domain name of burlingtoncap.co.uk was purchased on 31^st August 2021 and is therefore only 22 days old at the time of writing this article.  These scammers are obviously very keen to get their scam out there and to take in as much money as they can before they are rumbled.

Here is an email they have been sending out to their intended victims:

From: info@burlingtoncap.co.uk
To:
Subject: Information from Burlington Capital Holdings

Dear

We can confirm we have now received your funds, your cheque will be issued to you once we have received authorisation from the client holding facility stating that your account has been successfully completed.

Once completed, we will issue payment to you by way of cheque or bank transfer.

For your records, I have attached a copy of the cheque we have received. Please keep a record for your own book keeping.

Please get in contact with us at your earliest convenience for your Capital retrieval.

Kind regards,

John Gray.

Compliance Officer.

Burlington Capital Holdings Ltd
Trading Address: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0SR
Registered Address: 30 St George Street, London, W1S 2FH
Website: www.burlingtoncap.co.uk
Telephone: 0203 488 4836
Company Number:  10549015

Two things to note.

1. “We can confirm that we have now received your funds”.  No payment has been made by the intended victim so that sentence is designed to entice the intended victim to email back and query the payment, at which point they will probably be told there was an admin error and no funds have been received, but would they like to pay the release fee and then the large sum that Burlington is holding can be released to them.

2. “I have attached a copy of the cheque we have received”.  This is the hook to make it look like a buyer for their worthless investment really exists and that it has paid money into an account.  The cheque is made out in the name of intended victim [NAME REMOVED BY US], and as you can see below it is for a very large sum.  The cheque is of course entirely fake.

The cheque is from Nat West Bank and shows the sort code of 60-70-80.  It also states that the branch location is Temple Fortune Branch, 1175 Finchley Road, London.  It turns out that the sort code is a genuine Nat West code, but the branch to which it relates is Government Banking CST PO Box 2027, De Havilland Way, Horwich, Bolton.  That’s 200 miles away from Finchley.  We also ran the sort code and account number through an account checker and were informed that account number 15166423 does not match to the sort code of 60-70-80.  In other words, the bank account number is fake.

It would be nice if somebody was out there willing to pay £204,971.44 for something that has absolutely no value, but sadly the world doesn’t work like that.

Safe Or Scam Blog Articles Now Open For Comments.

Following requests from readers we have now removed most of our restrictions to allow readers to comment on our blog articles. Some restrictions are still in place. For example, comments have to be approved by us before they will appear. We will try to approve comments as quickly as possible, but please bear with us.  Here are our rules:

1. You must be a registered member of the site to be able to post a comment;

2. Don’t slag us off. It’s our website and we’ll simply consign your comment to the trash folder if you just want to call us names. Our advice to scammers is not to bother. You’ll be wasting your time and we’ll still write about you;

3. No unauthorised advertising please. We’ll read every comment and we’ll delete or amend any advertisements, spam or self-promotions we don’t like;

4. Please try to stay on topic. Don’t write to complain about the price of cabbages on an article about binary option scams;

5. Don’t be nasty or disparaging to other users. No bullying (unless it is aimed at the scammer and then we’ll accept it);

That’s it really.

Sterling Holdings Scam.

A group of scammers is carrying out a follow-on-fraud against people who have lost money in investment scams.  They are using the name of Sterling Holdings.  There is a genuine Sterling Holdings Ltd in the UK, but these scammers are not that company.  The letterhead paper they use (as can be seen below) shows the UK company registration number at the bottom.  That is not the registration number of Sterling Holdings Ltd.  It is the registration number for a company called Sterling PCC Holdings Ltd.  These scammers are not that company either.

They use the domain name of sterlingholdingsltd.com.

The Sterling Holdings scam is the usual model whereby the scammers claim to have a buyer for the intended victim’s investment. The investment could have been anything – carbon credits, bonds, diamonds, binary options, rare earth metals etc.  The bottom line is that the investment companies have all gone because they were running scams.  The investor was left with nothing.

The scammers claim that there is a buyer for these investments and that the money has been placed in escrow. All the investor has to do is to pay the escrow fees and the money will be released to them.  They attempt to provide reassurance for the investor by stating that Sterling Holdings will act as Guarantor for the transaction. The Sterling Holdings scammers are persistent and will keep calling their intended victim asking when the escrow fee will be paid.  It is unusual in that both men and women are involved in the scam.

Here is an example of one of their emails:

Here is the letter they attach to their email (with investor details redacted to protect his/her identity):

Sterling Holdings Scam_Under-Written Guarantee_REDACTED 

If you receive any letters claiming there is a buyer for your collapsed investment and that the money is being held in escrow until you have paid a fee, it is always a scam, even if they claim to have a Guarantor to protect your money. It’s a very common follow-on-fraud.

Paul Donofrio Scam.

We have received a few reports of a mass email communication with the usual story of free money for anyone who responds.  These are low quality scams which broadcast to millions of people hoping to get a few responses.  This one came from someone calling himself Mr Paul Donofrio , although his email address is ericdonafrio@gmail.com.  He calls himself Paul in the text of the email but has the name Eric in his email address, and he spells his surname as Donofrio in the text, but Donafrio in the email.  It seems that he is a very confused individual because he doesn’t know his own name.  That’s not a very good start, but this is a very poor scam.

Here is the email which is typical of these kinds of mass broadcasts.

This is to let you know that the World Bank Swiss/ UN monetary unit has reopened our services to beneficiaries after the lockdown.

Given this development, we are fully aware that many beneficiaries may have died as a result of the pandemic and therefore could not claim their pending funds.

Bank Of America was appointed by the office of World bank auditors to make such payments to the concerned beneficiaries. And the sum of USD 5,400,000.00 has been approved by world bank auditors to be paid to each beneficiary concerned out of his/her total fund as part payment.

We, therefore, want you to get back to us if you are still alive by forwarding your full details such as

• Your full names
• Address,
• Phone Number
• Any means of identification.

The only thing we will do is to re-validate your file so that it will become more authentic and be among the list of files that will be on our pay list.

NOTE: Please, if you are not interested in receiving this approved fund, you may not bother to contact us back.

This is a golden opportunity for you to receive your fund. Thanks for your anticipated cooperation.

Your immediate response is highly needed to enable us to commence the transfer.

Yours faithfully,

Paul m, Donofrio

It is important to remember that if you have no idea why you have received an email offering you free money or free shares it is a scam. Never send your personal details to anyone who sends you an unsolicited email.

Paul Donofrio Scam.

Festival Hotels Group Loses Another Hotel.

Earlier this week Festival Hotels Group lost another of its hotels as it was forced into administration by Redwood Bank. This time it was the Comfort Inn in Sunderland which was put into administration. It was not surprising because a smaller lender had filed a winding up petition over Shepherd Cox Hotels (Sunderland) Ltd, the owner of the hotel. This was the winding up petition which was not declared by Lee Bramzell to his creditors before they voted on his IVA proposal, the non-disclosure of which should have annulled the IVA vote, but which Purnells, the trustee, chose to regard as a minor issue despite it being a criminal offence for the IVA proposer not to disclose material facts which may affect his/her ability to make payments to creditors.

See below for the Notice Of Administration.

Shepherd Cox Hotels (Sunderland) Ltd Notice Of Administration

Festival Hotels Group was established by Lee Bramzell and Nick Carlile with the assistance and support of Luqa Ltd and Part-Time Ltd. The original portfolio consisted of 10 hotels, but was recently reduced to 5 hotels following the bankruptcy of Nick Carlile and a dispute between Lee Bramzell and Luqa Ltd which resulted in a hostile take-over of 5 hotels by Luqa’s associates from  FHG. This administration leaves FHG with 4 hotels, two of which are the focus of action by Luqa Ltd and are likely to be lost in the near future.

Lee Bramzell claims to be fighting some of the transfers, but that was when he needed creditors to support his IVA Proposal. Now that Purnells adjudicated that non-disclosure is allowed and the IVA has been approved, we doubt these claims will be pursued. Lee Bramzell recently resigned from approximately 20 companies and installed long-term lackey Adam Stanborough in his place. One of those companies was Festival Hotels Group. It appears that Lee Bramzell is not intending to be around to deliver on his IVA promises.

Festival Hotels Group Loses Another Hotel.

UCIS Advice Point Limited.

UCIS Advice Point Limited was dissolved on 29^th July 2021.

Dissolved (in the words of one famous comedy sketch) means that it no longer exists. It is no more. It has ceased to be. Bereft of life it rests in peace. It has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed its last, gone to meet the Great Registrar of Companies in the sky…….. (award yourself one point for recognising the sketch). However, UCIS Advice Point Limited may have dissolved but, as if by magic, the non-existent company is still approaching investors in failed investment schemes offering its dishonest services. That is not legal and any law firm which is involved with UCIS Advice Point clearly doesn’t care about its reputation.

There is no mention of the backgrounds of the two people operating it, Andrew Eastham and Neil Ronald Bromage, both of whom have served time in prison for financial offences.  We won’t revisit those offences again because they have been adequately covered in our previous articles listed below.

UCIS Advice Point – 1st July 2020 – LINK

UCIS Advice Point Scam Alert – 2nd July 2020 – LINK

UCIS Advice Point News – December 2020 – LINK

We have also in the past warned the public that once their details are sent to UCIS Advice Point they are likely to receive unsolicited invitations to invest in more scam investments.  Those invitations will not come direct from UCIS Advice Point, but from their linked companies.  We will cover some of their scam investments below.

What we did not realise is that despite the company being dissolved on 29^th July 2021 and no longer being in existence, the two convicted fraudsters would carry on pretending that the company was still alive, even going so far as to issue invoices in the name of the dead company. Of course, that is not legal, but compliance with the law has never bothered the Bromage family or Mr Eastham before. We have a copy of an invoice issued by the dead company several weeks after it was dissolved.

How does a company which does not exist collect payments ?  A dead company cannot own a bank account.  The answer is that it uses a money mule.  It requests payments be made to a third party which does exist.  Money mules launder money for scammers.

But, in this case, the money mule is not a totally independent third party.  It is a company which has had a long association with the Bromage family.  Even so, it’s still illegal to issue invoices in the name of a company which doesn’t exist and to have payments diverted to another company.  This third party has been financing the operations of UCIS Advice Point for some time.

UCIS Advice Point Limited dissolved without filing any company accounts.  That’s because it didn’t want its scam to show up to the UK authorities.  The former director of UCIS Advice Point Limited, Peter Rowland Dobson, has some questions to answer.

So what is the bogus UCIS Advice Point up to now ?  Well, at the end of August, around a month after the company no longer existed, they wrote out to investors in the Shepherd Cox Hotels scam.

NEIL BROMAGE’S INVOLVEMENT IN SCAMS

What we have never covered before is that Neil Ronald Bromage was the director of a company called Hollyhurst 2015 Ltd.  Here is a link to his directorship – LINK.

Hollyhurst 2015 was the owner of Penrallt Country House Hotel.  This hotel sold off its bedrooms in a scam.  We are in possession of a brochure for the Penrallt Country House Hotel describing the investment opportunity for investors to buy bedrooms in the hotel.  This is exactly the kind of scam that UCIS Advice Point offered to help investors recover money from.  

Here are some excerpts from Neil Bromage’s brochure:

“The Penrallt Hotel has 26 rooms and will be offered to investors to purchase on a 99 year leasehold with a guaranteed exit strategy at year 6 which will be executed through a Call Option Deed. Investors are guaranteed a 10% per annum ROI and a buy back option at year 3 (105% uplift) and year 6 (110% uplift)”.

26 Bedrooms Available From £54,950

99 Year Leasehold Title Deed

Guaranteed 10% ROI per Annum

Fully Managed Armchair Investment

As you would expect this investment opportunity was never achievable.  The guaranteed rental of 10% per annum wasn’t paid and there were never any buy-backs. It was a scam and it collapsed.  Sadly, none of the investors who bought rooms at the Penrallt Hotel have recovered their money.  They lost at least £1.4m.

Strange that Neil Bromage didn’t offer the services of UCIS Advice Point to help those investors.

NEIL BROMAGE SON’S INVOLVEMENT IN SCAMS

You would think that one failed hotel scam would have been enough in the family, but that’s not the case.  Eagle-eyed readers amongst you will have noticed from the Companies House link above that Jonathan Neil Bromage was also a director of Hollyhurst 2015 Ltd along with Scott Else.  Jonathan Neil Bromage is Neil Bromage’s son.  He was also involved in the Penrallt Hotel scam.

Not to be deterred by one collapsed hotel scheme, the son tried the same scam at a second hotel.  This time it was in Blackpool and was as recent as 2019.  The company was called Mosaic Hotels (Blackpool) Ltd but, in order to hide his involvement in the “investment opportunity”, it was marketed under the name of Majestic Hotels.  The problem is that you can’t hide the address of the hotel.  The Majestic Hotel had the same address as the Mosaic Hotel at 10-12 Queens Promenade, Blackpool, which amazingly, is also the address of “The Welland Hotel” which is owned by BlueArch Properties Ltd.  There are two directors of Bluearch Properties Ltd.  As you may have guessed they are Jonathan Neil Bromage and Scott Else.

Majestic Hotel Ltd has the same registered office as Mosaic Hotels (Blackpool) Ltd and was also previously the registered office of Bluearch Properties Ltd.  That address is 3b Constellation House, Lockheed Court, Amy Johnson Way, Blackpool, United Kingdom, FY4 2RN which, coincidentally, was also the registered office of UCIS Advice Point Limited before it was dissolved.

Suffice to say that Majestic Hotels, Mosaic Hotels, Bluearch Properties and UCIS Advice Point Limited was the same group of scammers running the same kinds of scams.

Here are some excerpts from the Majestic Hotels brochure:

Investment Overview

NO OF UNITS: 38 En-suite rooms

PRICE: From £49,950

OWNERSHIP: 999-year leasehold

YIELD: 10% PA net

YIELD PAYMENT: Quarterly in arrears

Assured Buy Back Option at end of year 5 & year 10 at 100% & 110% of your purchase price or you can sell on the open market at any time.

FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY

We have been contacted by people who have told us that they have complained to the Financial Conduct Authority about UCIS Advice Point Limited. The organisation was covered by the Claims Management Company Regulations in exactly the same way that we are.  Readers will note that in order to read this article they had to pass through a pop-up box and click ‘I CONFIRM’.  This was an FCA requirement to ensure that we are FCA-Compliant.  UCIS Advice Point Limited was required to comply in the same manner, but they didn’t and we have no way of knowing whether the FCA ever took any action against the company.

ANDREW EASTHAM

As readers will note from the first links in this article, Andrew Eastham was convicted of fraud, served his prison sentence and was released. He then worked with Neil Bromage to set up UCIS Advice Point.  Neither Neil Bromage nor Andrew Eastham could be directors of the company because of their criminal convictions so they brought in a stooge to front the company for them.

On 21^st August 2021 Andrew Eastham was finally struck-off as a solicitor.  Here is a copy of the SRA hearing report below.

Andrew Eastham_SRA Decision 21st August 2021

Now Mr Eastham finds himself embroiled in another scandal relating to the issuing of invoices from a non-existent company.  These guys must have really enjoyed their time in prison.

THE MONEY MULE COMPANY

People may wonder why we have not published the identity of the party which was due to receive the money from the illegal UAP invoice.  Well, we have the evidence to back up our claims and we know these people have had a long established and ongoing relationship with the Bromages.  We know they’ve been funding UCIS Advice Point, but we wanted to give them a chance to explain exactly why they would risk their businesses and their reputations in such a manner.  We have written to ask them for an explanation.  We’ll be publishing another article on this matter next week and that may include details of their companies if we’re not satisfied with their answers.  It appears to us that they had agreed to use their company bank account to take payments for a non-existent company in an illegal arrangement with Neil Bromage and Andrew Eastham, but we’ll give them a chance to explain it.

To view an update on this article in October 2021 please click on this LINK.

Merger Masters International Scam.

A group of scammers operating under the name of Merger Masters International is carrying out a fake share scam on members of the public.

The people they approach do not own any shares in a company called VS Capital Management Inc and have never heard of it, but Merger Masters International attempts to convince them that they do own shares in that company and that those shares were being sold at a huge profit, but there has been a problem. The sale (and the free profits the intended victim did not know about) is under threat unless their intended victim pays some money.  They allege that the actions of a rogue shareholder is preventing all shareholders from receiving a large payment, so they need the well-behaved shareholders to buy out the rogue shareholder.  It’s a ridiculous scam, but they are putting a lot of effort into persuading people that they own valuable shares.

In this case the company is called VS Capital Management Inc, but it can be any company name they have plucked out of the air.  This is probably the fourth or fifth time we have seen this scam model being used.  It’s hard to believe, but this stupid scam must work once in a while or else they wouldn’t keep using it.  The scam always starts with the intended victim receiving a telephone call out of the blue. Here is a copy of an email they have been sending out as a follow-up:

From: Administration <admin@mergermastersinternational.com>

Subject:Re: Proposal

Dear

As you know, we have been locked in discussions with the tax authorities and have received a proposal from them to resolve the issue of the position that is currently frozen. The shareholder involved is now being prosecuted for tax evasion after fraudulently submitting a tax exemption form.

Without this position, the sale completely collapses, and unfortunately everybody will lose out. We cannot allow that to happen so we have had to submit a request to the tax authorities for the position to be freed up so we can complete on the sale.

We have submitted our case and provided contractual agreements to show that the participants involved will all lose out unfairly due to the act of one individual that is not associated with any of the remaining participants.

The result of this request is that the tax authorities will allow the remaining 16 participating shareholders to take on the position, they have made it very clear that each shareholder must participate. The shareholder who has committed the offense cannot make a financial gain, therefore his position will be made available at the shareholders original cost price. It has also been confirmed that any corporate entity involved will not be allowed to make a financial gain nor will it be possible that just one or two of the remaining shareholders take on the full position to alleviate remaining shareholders from participation, It has been made very clear that the only way to proceed is to equally participate and all 16 shareholders share this responsibility.

I am not naive enough to think that each shareholder is in the position to equally share this and I have expressed this concern to the tax authorities and their response was to come back to them with the suggested split on the share allocation among the remaining shareholders. I tried to press for the split to be staggered among the group however the agent we are liaising with was not forthcoming to this suggestion. I need you all as a group to come back to me with your maximum amounts. I know some of you have requested to take more than what is required and I thank you for your cooperation but we need each of you to come back to us with your maximum amounts so we can work out a fair arrangement and allocate the shares in accordance to the tax authorities requests.

If one shareholder does not participate unfortunately, we cannot proceed, and this has been made very clear during the conference call. I have spoken to all of you and you know how hard we have pressed to keep this deal alive. Furthermore, there is a significant financial gain to be made on the additional share purchase and we must be fair as to how we split these additional shares. Some of you may be allowed to purchase more than the equal split however I won’t be able to confirm this until everybody’s maximum amounts are back, if you can take more than the equal split please make that clear on your offer.

We are hoping to submit the amounts of the split later today. Please see below the breakdown of the position and share prices.

Number of shares to be split between the group  2,600,000

Price  $0.30 USD per share

Total – $780,000 USD

There are 16 of you in the group this works out to 162,500 shares each, which totals to  $48,750 USD per shareholder. The shares will be sold at the contractually agreed price of $2.60 with the sale value being $422,500 (share price x 162,500 shares) in addition to your original position which is currently held in escrow.

Once we have confirmed the number of shares that will distributed amongst the remaining shareholders, we will draft new contracts for the additional share purchase for each individual involved. The client acquiring the company has agreed to distribute the funds accordingly for the additional amount into your escrow accounts upon contracts being signed and returned, prior to the additional share purchase. We will then be able to complete on the compulsory purchase order.

They have requested that we come back to them as soon as we can with the arrangements of the split as we have to distribute the shares as evenly as possible, as mentioned individual shareholders cannot take a majority of the holdings and others take small positions, so please submit your maximum amounts as and when you are in a position to do so. We are aware that it can take time releasing funds but we need to have clarity on the amounts we can distribute between the group so that the tax authorities can give us the green light to get this signed off and secured.

I wait for your responses and hope to get this matter resolved very soon.

Regards,
Christopher Marston

Senior Compliance Officer
Merger Masters, International

+1 646 217 4958
www.mergermastersinternational.com

What a complete load of b******.

If an intended victim questions whether this might be a scam they are given an email address of a person the scammers claim is a satisfied customer who will provide them with reassurance.  We have seen this before and in the past we have had a tough time persuading an intended victim that the satisfied customer is really a member of the scamming team.  The fake satisfied customer even goes so far as to send a fake bank statement showing that he paid his money and he received a very large sum paid into his account not long afterwards.

The perpetrators of the Merger Masters International scam claim that their company has been in operation for 40 years, but the website domain they use (mergermastersinternational.com) was purchased in September 2020.

We’ve also been told that an organisation using the domain name of danielvanderelst-eu.com is involved, but we’re not quite sure what role it plays. That domain was also purchased in September 2020. What a coincidence. We are awaiting further information.

Here is a copy of the Merger Masters International fake ‘Additional Stock Transfer Form’.  If you are ever sent anything like this we guarantee it is a scam.

Merger Masters International Scam_Additional Stock Transfer Form REDACTED

Reporting Alastair Dobbie.

We have been asked by investors who they should contact if they have paid money to Alastair Dobbie and/or any of his investor co-ordinator group and they feel that they were deliberately misled or misinformed, or that there had not been full disclosure of relevant facts, relationships or conflicts of interest, or that the service they received fell short of that expected of a practicing UK legal professional.

We advised investors a long time ago that Alastair Dobbie was subject to an investigation by both the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Council. Neither of these investigations were our doing. They were apparently in progress before we wrote our first article.

We are not aware of the reasons for the original investigations and they may be unrelated to his and his team’s recent activities in providing recovery room services to the victims of scams in which he or law firms associated with him, his investor co-ordinators and/or his sales agent clients, were involved in selling to investors.

However, whether the original investigations are related to these activities or not, there is certainly far more cause for concern after our reports on Mr Dobbie and his teams’ activities in relation to NPD, Carlauren, Qualia Care and St Camillus.

We cannot give the contact email addresses in full because it would result in spam emails being sent to the SRA and Bar Council, but we can structure it below so that spam email programs which search the internet for email addresses wouldn’t be able to recognise them, but human readers will be able to work out the email address.  The addresses are:

FIRST PART:  Faiza.Ashraf   MIDDLE PART:  @   FINAL PART:  sra.org.uk

FIRST PART:  MCarter         MIDDLE PART:  @   FINAL PART:   BarStandardsBoard.org.uk

When reporting Alastair Dobbie investors need not have directly instructed him. He has been using investor co-ordinators as pseudo para-legals so that is no clear solicitor-client relationship trail would exist between Alastair Dobbie / Shortlands Law and some investors. We’ve been informed that this structure does not comply with the SRA Code Of Conduct.

To view our previous article on one of Alastair Dobbie’s key pseudo para-legals, Roberto Pancaldi, click on this LINK.

If you would like to report any solicitor for misconduct you can do so via this LINK to the SRA Website.

Lodore Follow-On-Fraud

An organisation calling itself Lodore Investment Management, but also seemingly calling itself Lodore Ltd, is carrying out the Lodore follow-on-fraud against people who have already fallen victim to a scam.

The fake organisation is using the identity of a genuine company, Lodore Ltd, which was formed in 1920 !

The scammers have the phone numbers and email addresses of investors in binary option scams which were all the rage around 3 or 4 years ago.  One such scam was StratXMarkets which we have covered before.  The Lodore scammers are phoning investors telling them that their investment money is held in an escrow account with Cysec (the Cyprus financial services regulator) – LINK.  It isn’t – there is no money.

The person making the calls has been described to us as “an idiot who can’t get his story straight”. In other words, a typical low-level conman.

The scammers purchased the domain of lodoreltd.co.uk in December 2020 for a one year term.  That’s the minimum period for which you can buy a domain so they are clearly not planning on being around for long.  Quite surprising considering the company they are impersonating is 101 years old.

The scam website isn’t too shabby, but it’s still a scam. We won’t publish a link to the website because it won’t be around for much longer.

Here is one of their emails:

Dear  

The likelihood is that one of the binary option scammers has either sold the list of investors to a scam group, or is trying his luck himself because times are hard.  There’s not so much call for scam salesmen these days because people are being much more cautious about investing in allegedly high-yielding investments.

The Lodore follow-on-fraud is just an attempt to get investors to pay over more money to the people who scammed them in the first place. Do not be taken in by unsolicited phone calls claiming that your investment money is being held in a safe place, no matter what investment you made.  It is never true.