Dodgy Pension Trustee

zagfles

magpiecottage wrote: »

Why did your financial adviser recommend that you transfer to this outfit? It sounds like you have a valid complaint against him or her.

You want to move fast before his professional indemnity policy comes up for renewal and scams of this kind are excluded from it.

Scams are being excluded from professional indemnity insurances?? How can they possibly do that - surely the whole point of professional indemnity insurance is to insure against exactly this sort of thing - ie a mistake such as being taken in by a scam.

Bit worrying for people who use IFAs if this is true.

MrUnhappy

As far as I was aware, my dealings were with Green Footprint investments, they shifted the plans to AC management and administrations ltd without my knowledge!

ReAssure would not release the funds to Mark Harris as he failed to return the relevant information they required, HSBC on the other hand, well, need I say more. They have also been informed not to release the funds to him, however on his mickey mouse paperwork he is under the impression that he also has these funds. ReAssure have confirmed he doesn't.

AC management and administrations are registered with HMRC as a Pension Administrator, surely there must be some comeback there??

dunstonh

As far as I was aware, my dealings were with Green Footprint investments, they shifted the plans to AC management and administrations ltd without my knowledge!

Green Footprint Investments is not regulated by the FSA and is not authorised to offer advice to the general public concerning any regulated or unregulated investment.

AC management and administrations are registered with HRMC as a Pension Administrator, surely there must be some comeback there??

The FCA is the regulatory body. Not HMRC.

MrUnhappy

That is what is stated on there documentation, "Registered with HMRC as a pension Administrator"
Are we thinking Action Fraud would be a good call to make?

bigadaj

MrUnhappy wrote: »

That is what is stated on there documentation, "Registered with HMRC as a pension Administrator"
Are we thinking Action Fraud would be a good call to make?

You can try but it's not really fraud, they aren't claiming to be regulated by hmrc, just registered with them.

princeofpounds

You can try but it's not really fraud, they aren't claiming to be regulated by hmrc, just registered with them.

That in itself might not be fraud, but the situation itself might be. I'd certainly recommend the OP does a little research and uses all possible channels to recover the money.

The advisor, whoever that was (green footprint?) may be in trouble with the FCA if they were carrying out a regulated activity. They might be claiming not to give advice, but it's possible they did when they shouldn't have been.

MrUnhappy

Would the below be deemed as offering advise?, extract from an email sent by Green Footprint. Just done some research and it appears that both Eco Quest plc and Just Loans Plc are both registered to the same address as Green Footprint Investments!!!

Further to our conversation please find attached a copy of the HSBC statement which shows what contributions are being made. Also below is a brief overvierw of the investment choices available to you :

Option 1 - Eco Quest Plc
5.5% fixed return each year
Investment term - 5 years
For further details see the attached brochure

Option 2 - Just Loans Plc
7.5% fixed return
Investment term - 3 years
For further details see the attached brochure

If you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me

ScottyLP

I'd say no, unless they told you which option to take.

Davnik

Any updates on this? I have just found it and had enormous problems myself with Mark Harris. I too was persuaded to change my pension by Green Footprint and have investments with Eco Quest. I took 25% lump sum last year which took an age to get out of Mark Harris. He ignores communications and fails to send statements. I am concerned that he is responsible for the rest of my pension which I hope to access under the new rules next year.

Davnik

MrUnhappy wrote: »

In February 2013, I arranged to transfer two pension plans, one from HSBC and another from ReAssure that I had been paying in to, via an independent company called Green footprint Investments. After numerous calls to Green Footprint with regard to the relevant paperwork, they informed me that the retirement plans were being handled by a Mr Mark Harris of AC Management & Administration Ltd, part of Alexandra Chambers Ltd.

After numerous calls to Mr Harris, who for some strange reason will not take telephone calls and can only be contacted via email or by leaving a contact number so he can call you back, which he never does. In fact the only time Mr Harris actually called back was when I left a message saying that if he didn’t call me back before close of office the matter was being reported to The Serious Fraud Office.

Mr Harris then said he would post me the relevant paperwork that day, a week later I emailed Mr Harris as to where the documentation was, he stated, via email, it must have got lost in the post and he would email me a copy. One week later, still no paperwork, again emailed and the reply was that he had accidently emailed it to the wrong address.
The next day, I received the “official documentation” via email. My 10 year old daughter could have knocked something up on her computer that was more convincing!!


Again I emailed Mr Harris stating that this was far from official documentation and that it was just an admission that he had received my money. The details are also incorrect as ReAssure had refused to release any monies to Mr Harris as he hadn’t returned the relevant information that they required before releasing the funds.

Another email, asking Mr Harris where the annual statement was, the reply, on the 12th February was that he was awaiting some information relating to an investment and also the tax position on the funds but would get one to me within 7 to 10 days time.

As of today, this statement has still not arrived and his response yet again, was that it must have been lost in the post but would get another one sent out or emailed.

Mr Harris has now ignored numerous requests from both myself and my authorized Financial Adviser to transfer the funds.

Mr Harris has been informed that I would take this action and would also report this matter to all relevant bodies including Action Fraud but still chooses to ignore my requests. In my opinion this is not the way a so called professional person acts and his actions raise the doubt as to whether or not he is in fact a qualified solicitor.
Tried reporting him to the SRA, but surprise surprise, he is not regulated.
Any advise would be most welcome

Have had exactly the same problems with this alleged solicitor.