UCIS Advice Point Scam Alert

UCIS Advice Point Scam Alert

Further to our article two days ago which you can READ HERE, we have now received a reply to our email sent to UCIS Advice Point and have also been provided with additional information on the key man, Neil Ronald Bromage.  This has caused us to raise the alert level from DANGER in our first article to SCAM ALERT in this article.  This UCIS Advice Point Scam Alert is our way of saying there are good reasons not to trust this company.

Firstly, here are the key points in the reply to our email.

“….for the record and for your information UAP is wholly owned by Mr Peter Dobson, a highly successful Lancashire based businessman. Mr Neil Bromage is a longstanding business and financial journalist who, as a result of his significant experience and understanding of UCIS`s has been of help to Mr Dobson and continues to enjoy an ad hoc consultancy role with UAP when he is not writing for the mainstream press. Mr Dobson is fully aware of Mr Bromage`s status and as such Mr Bromage plays no part whatsoever in the management of Mr Dobson`s company”.

We will return to Mr Bromage’s CV because he seems to have missed a few items out.  He claims to play no part in the management of the company and acts only as a consultant.  That is the standard position for a disqualified director i.e to claim that they are an independent consultant because a disqualified director MUST NOT direct or control a company in any way.  It’s amazing how many disqualified directors end up as “consultants” to companies which they basically control.  Directing or controlling a company when disqualified is a criminal offence.  Hence the reason why UCIS Advice Point made this statement, but is it true ?  We will take a closer look at that statement below.

We note the comments in your penultimate paragraph but have lawyers who have provided us with the necessary advice with which we are content.

The penultimate paragraph to which he refers is where we questioned the company’s statement that it is NOT a claims management company.  It’s odd that they put that on their website and in the letters they send out to investors. We ourselves have recently had discussions with the Financial Conduct Authority over what constitutes claims management activities and on that basis we believe UCIS Advice Point IS a claims management company, but we will leave that for the FCA to determine.

In writing your article you may wish to include that UAP are happy to announce that as a result of their efforts a significant “scheme” has today been launched by a major international law firm and litigation funder to assist all the investors in a £100m multi-scheme failed development to pursue their claims for recovery.

That sounds like claims management activity to us. Perhaps the use of the word “scheme”, which UAP itself chose to put in inverted comments, is rather apt based on what follows in the rest of this article.

Needless to say, that should you write anything remotely detrimental or libellous about UAP we shall respond accordingly.

Fair enough.

OK, so this is where it is going to get really interesting !

Let’s return to the gaps in Mr Bromage’s CV.  We highlighted in our previous article that Mr Bromage was disqualified from acting as a director in 2015 for a period of 10 years.  We are now aware of other issues which have caused us to upgrade this article to a Scam Alert.

As far back as 2005 the UK Parliament’s House of Lords discussed a case involving Mr Bromage for Judgement.  You can read the full text of the Judgement here, but we have copied the two most relevant paragraphs below (para 14 and 33):

14.  What Mr Hilton did not know, and did not discover until much later, was that Mr Bromage had only a few months before been released from prison on licence. On 30 October 1989 he was sentenced at Preston Crown Court to nine months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to three offences of participating in the management of a company while an undischarged bankrupt, one offence of fraudulent trading, and nine offences of obtaining credit while an undischarged bankrupt. He was released from prison on 16 March 1990.

33.  Two of the most important facts known to BBE, but unknown to Mr Hilton, were that Mr Bromage had been made bankrupt and that while an undischarged bankrupt he had committed numerous offences of dishonesty for which he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment. These facts were known to any journalist or member of the public who had been present in the Preston Crown Court when Mr Bromage pleaded guilty and was sentenced. They were also probably reported in local newspapers.

So Mr Bromage went to prison in 1989 after pleading guilty to three offences of participating in the management of a company while an undischarged bankrupt, one offence of fraudulent trading and nine offences of obtaining of obtaining credit while an undischarged bankrupt….. The people we have spoken to have told us that they were given the impression that UCIS Advice Point is controlled by Mr Bromage, despite him being a disqualified director. He appears to have prior history of “participating in the management of a company” when forbidden by law to do so.

In 2017 Mr Bromage was in court again.  This was after he had been disqualified as a director.  Here is the press report at the time and here is the text of the Article:

A magistrate warned a bankrupt company director that he was not a “million miles” from going to prison.

Neil Bromage, 61, had failed to pay fines totalling £21,075.The fines were imposed in 2015 at Preston Crown Court when Bromage of Coniston Road, Blackpool, was guilty of a Insolvency Act offence-acting as a director when disqualified from doing so.

Magistrates heard that Bromage had promised to repay the fines at a rate of £500 a month rising to £3,000 a month. He claimed in court that he had been made bankrupt in July by the Revenue and Customs and that he had been told by the Official Receiver that the fines had been included in his list of debts by the Receiver who had told him not to pay anything.

He told the court: “I am in a state of confusion over the fines and am seeking clarification of what I should from this court.”

Chairman of the Bench Brian Horrocks ordered Bromage to return to court with some paperwork from the Receiver to back up his claims.

“I am warning you are not a million miles from going to prison,” he said.

What this tells us is that Neil Bromage was made bankrupt for a second time in July 2017.  He had also been prosecuted for a second time for acting as a director (or participating in the management of a company) when disqualified from doing so.

Now Neil Bromage is asking us to believe that he isn’t participating in the management of UCIS Advice Point.  The information we have received suggests otherwise.  We don’t believe him and that is why the UCIS Advice Point Scam Alert has been issued.

We are intrigued as to which law firm will be involved in the alleged £100m legal action he refers to.  We believe the SRA, FCA and Insolvency Service should take a look at UCIS Advice Point and its partners when “the scheme” is announced.  Mr Bromage was active in UCIS Advice Point prior to the formation of the limited company.

UCIS ADVICE POINT SCAM ALERT  –  NEWS JUST IN

We believe UCIS Advice Point is a front for gathering investor details which will automatically be passed on to organisations / individuals and used to sell other financial products to those investors.  We believe people who contact UCIS Advice Point can expect to be put on an investor list and will receive offers to invest in other products.  It seems Mr Neil Ronald Bromage is up to his old tricks again.  He writes one newspaper article so that he can claim he is a financial journalist which will give him credibility and attract more victims to his websites.

That other organisation / individual has a website www.capitalsecurities.co.uk.  This looks to be another shadowy organisation / individual breaching UK Financial Services regulations.  The websites of UCIS Advice Point and Capital Securities show that both companies / individuals are based at the same address of 3b Constellation House, Lockheed Court, Amy Johnson Way, Blackpool, FY4 2RN.  Furthermore, they both have the same telephone number of 0203 758 9119.

Neither the UCIS Advice Point website nor the Capital Securities website give any information about who the websites belong to.  That is very unusual for so-called genuine companies.  Not only that, it is illegal.

The Capital Securities website has a section on Introducers.  This is what it says “Capital Securities has over the past 10 years managed to grow an extensive database of introducers. This is mainly due to our transparent approach regarding fees. It’s very simple, we split fees 50/50 with all of our introducers!“.  It’s clear that UCIS Advice Point offers “free advice” to investors just to gather investor information which it intends to use to sell its own “investments” to people who contact it.  UCIS Advice Point is a scam.  Neil Bromage is not a financial journalist with a detailed knowledge of UCIS. He is an opportunist looking to pass on investor details to parties who want to sell investments.

Any investors who have given their details to UCIS Advice Point and are concerned by that are invited to contact us.

Here is a link to the response of an investor to a follow-on-fraudster.  This investor felt the fraudster had obtained her details from UCIS Advice Point.