Umbrella pension fund?

Aegis

sammie2020 wrote: »

Hi everyone,
Has anyone heard of a company called Forensic Review Ltd. My sister has recevied a call saying if she transfers everything from her pension fund into the above company, they can double her investment and for her trouble they will give her a £3000k cash prize. She have recieved paperwork to fill in but it looks a lot like mickey mouse has issued it. I think this has SCAM written all over it. I have been online and cant find anything out about them. I am really worried in case someone falls under this spell and ends up losing all thier hard earned saving, please if anyone has any info please let the rest of us know. If this is a genuine company no harm or malice is meant but i think the company will understand.

Absolute textbook scam, tell her to back away immediately and stop accepting their calls.

Company founded on 28 February this year. Details of the director and his former companies available here.

FSA warning against this company specifically here.

dunstonh

My sister has recevied a call saying if she transfers everything from her pension fund into the above company, they can double her investment and for her trouble they will give her a £3000k cash prize.

there are plenty of concerns.

1 - No genuine company can make any guarantee of returns. It would be a breach under FSA guidelines. It would perhaps suggest that it is not an FSA regulated contract being used where you are open to all sorts of problems and virtually no consumer protection.
2 - Genuine financial firms dont cold call. Most scams come from cold calling. If you avoid the cold calls you wont get scammed.
3 - To be paid £3000 (I assume you dont mean £300,000 as you typed) would be an unauthorised payment under HMRC rules and subject to a fine once they find out.
4 - most of the scams seem to come from abroad. Spain in particular but not exclusively.

As Aegis points out, this firm is not regulated. It is a scam. To get an FSA warning is impressive as the FSA are so often slow to react.

sammie2020

Thank you so much for the useful replies, she is not going any where near it, but wanted to make others aware, thank you once again.

atush

To make others aware, post the company name in yru own thread as a title as it will be picked up on more easily by others.

surir

Has anyone been payed £3000 by this company?

fwor

To quote the FSA warning about Forensic Review:

Forensic Review
http://www.forensicreview.co.uk/
is not authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) to carry
on regulated activities in the UK. Regulated activities include, amongst other things,
advising on investments and arranging deals in investments. We believe that this
organisation may be cold calling UK consumers from Spain and offering advice on
pension transfers.

If they pay you £3000, it will be £3000 of your own money, and you'll probably lose the rest.

bobbob74

Did this turn into a scam ? . As far as I can make out this looks like tax avoidance, similar to Jimmy Carr's k2 scheme only with pensions. It would be helpful to know as I have been looking into this, thanks.

dunstonh

It is almost certainly a scam. The director is linked with other companies that have such reputations as well.

Here is another article:
http://www.ftadviser.com/2012/01/09/pensions/personal-pensions/ifa-concern-over-firm-offering-pension-transfer-incentive-0yAmQPUlJTuDvWaD4nOxaL/article.html

Wyldekitty

Unfortunately, we signed all the paperwork in January 2012 prior to any notification of this scam. We had contact with them for a few months and in March 2012 our pension fund was transferred. 2 days later, we received a letter from an Irish company stating they had been appointed as trustees of the fund due to unusual activities on the accounts. We contact Money Matters who were overseeing the transfer and were told we should receive our £3K within a few weeks and if not, contact Forensic Review Ltd. We tried that and were told they hadn't received notification of the transfer but would investigate. The Pension fund is now frozen and were stuck. Forensic Review's contact number is unobtainable and Money Matters accept no responsibility.
Luck us ... not! :mad:

dunstonh

The easy rule of thumb is to remember is that you should never act on cold calls. If you refuse to deal with cold calling firms you will avoid being scammed. Some of those cold calls may be genuine. Many are not

The FSA handbook says that a firm must not cold call individuals unless the recipients have an “established existing client relationship with the firm” and that as such that they envisage receiving cold calls. So, you would not expect to receive cold calls from regulated firms unless you have a relationship with them already. So, if you get a pension cold call, you should treat it as a scam or very high risk nature no matter how genuine it sounds.