London Capital and Finance

dunstonh

csgohan4 said:

dunstonh said:

csgohan4 said:

Do we expect the FCA to monitor All bad investments, PONZI schemes e.t.c?? Surely they can't or have the resources for this?

Could one argue, when the line is when people taking responsibility for their own actions, I see people have chosen to ignore advice on here early on and saw greed instead sadly

They are too busy micromanaging the insignificant to focus on the real areas of concern.  

Do you think the FCA could have intervened with the Woodford scandal?

Yes.  I have mentioned before but the research company we buy our fund governance from said in 2017, two years before it failed, that the high level of illiquid assets made it unsuitable for a UK equity income fund and that we should not use it.    If a research company can see it then why cant the regulator?

csgohan4

dunstonh said:

csgohan4 said:

dunstonh said:

csgohan4 said:

Do we expect the FCA to monitor All bad investments, PONZI schemes e.t.c?? Surely they can't or have the resources for this?

Could one argue, when the line is when people taking responsibility for their own actions, I see people have chosen to ignore advice on here early on and saw greed instead sadly

They are too busy micromanaging the insignificant to focus on the real areas of concern.  

Do you think the FCA could have intervened with the Woodford scandal?

Yes.  I have mentioned before but the research company we buy our fund governance from said in 2017, two years before it failed, that the high level of illiquid assets made it unsuitable for a UK equity income fund and that we should not use it.    If a research company can see it then why cant the regulator?

Then it boils down to how FCA can monitor every fund or scam out there? it's like expecting Facebook to monitor every post for posting violations, it just is unrealistic, but expected sadly

masonic

csgohan4 said:

dunstonh said:

csgohan4 said:

dunstonh said:

csgohan4 said:

Do we expect the FCA to monitor All bad investments, PONZI schemes e.t.c?? Surely they can't or have the resources for this?

Could one argue, when the line is when people taking responsibility for their own actions, I see people have chosen to ignore advice on here early on and saw greed instead sadly

They are too busy micromanaging the insignificant to focus on the real areas of concern.  

Do you think the FCA could have intervened with the Woodford scandal?

Yes.  I have mentioned before but the research company we buy our fund governance from said in 2017, two years before it failed, that the high level of illiquid assets made it unsuitable for a UK equity income fund and that we should not use it.    If a research company can see it then why cant the regulator?

Then it boils down to how FCA can monitor every fund or scam out there? it's like expecting Facebook to monitor every post for posting violations, it just is unrealistic, but expected sadly

You are conflating "every fund or scam out there" with "the individuals and companies subject to regulation". If a regulator can't regulate "the individuals and companies subject to regulation", then it isn't doing its job by definition. If it can't regulate "the individuals and companies subject to regulation" that it has also received credible reports are breaching the regulations, then it is actively avoiding doing its job.

If this sort of behaviour occurred in private industry, for example a health and safety representative wilfully ignored a fire hazard that was reported to them that subsequently led to a fire that caused injury to employees a couple of years later, said representative would probably lose their job.

Alexland

csgohan4 said:

Then it boils down to how FCA can monitor every fund or scam out there?

At the very least they should have focused their resources taking a risk based approach on the products that were being reported to them (and being written about in newspapers) offering unrealistic returns with misleading marketing that were likely to cause the victims significant harm.

csgohan4 said:
it's like expecting Facebook to monitor every post for posting violations, it just is unrealistic, but expected sadly

That's because they have built their business model on being low quality. If they were properly held to account for the content published on their site perhaps their flawed business model would need to change or they could fail as unviable.

JollyLady

I have been Executing my mum's estate, since she passed in July 2019, with my ex-husband as co- executor. It has been really hard, but I wasn't aware of this thread, but would like to comment. I have not read through the whole thread

My mum invested, unknown to myself, 70k in this company in August 2018, as she was housebound, but had a laptop. She rang them, and they agreed, as she could not use virtual money transfer (too infirm/not well), that she could send a cheque for 70k.My son remembers being asked to post the cheque for her, not knowing the implications.

It was only when she passed in July 2019, that we knew anything about this (we being myself and adult son and daughter, and their dad, my ex). We found the letter showing the company had gone into admininstration the day after she died.

When she must have received the letter, it coincided with her becoming very disoriented, about late March 2019, falling a lot, and lead to her demise.

She had worked in the civil service all her working life, mainly at the premium bonds office at Blackpool, where Ernie was housed, and most of my parents' life savings were in bonds and stocks and premium bonds (dad died in 2013).

Yes she was silly, and yet we could not control her decisions, and this company need to really look at what they did. This lady was 86 years old, and too ashamed to tell us what had happened.

If she had we would have reassured her that it was ok. It has led to me taking ages to join any kind of support group, we just though she had lost a massive part of her life savings. Seeing the government has reacted has helped, but I just want to go back and tell my lovely mum it is ok.

Still grieveing a lot because of this

dunstonh

Yes she was silly, and yet we could not control her decisions, and this company need to really look at what they did. This lady was 86 years old, and too ashamed to tell us what had happened.

Unfortunately, scammers do not care.

Seeing the government has reacted has helped, but I just want to go back and tell my lovely mum it is ok.

Unfortunately, the Government is part of the problem.  By refunding people, they are allowing people to continue to make silly decisions and not take the care required as the expectation is that the taxpayers will pick up the bill.   The money would be better spent giving the regulator and authorities more resources to raise awareness and deal with the scammers.

Alexland

JollyLady said:

this company need to really look at what they did. 

Yes it was despicable but blame also lies at the door of the current bank of england governor who was running the FCA at the time when they decided mini bond scams were not their problem and let these schemes grow and take on new victims unchallenged.

GDB2222

I am so, so sorry that your late mother lost so much money this way. Sadly, the compensation scheme is not helping many of the investors. You are right not to expect compensation, and absolutely right not to blame your mum. Unfortunately, lots of people were taken in who were far more with it than her.

Malthusian

JollyLady said:

Yes she was silly, and yet we could not control her decisions, and this company need to really look at what they did. This lady was 86 years old, and too ashamed to tell us what had happened.

The company doesn't exist anymore.

As executor you will need to contact the FSCS and make a claim on her behalf. There are several avenues for compensation but they are all run by the FSCS, so they would be your first port of call.

GDB's post above is out of date - the Government has announced that all LCF investors will receive compensation from the taxpayer, with any compensation they have already received from the FSCS deducted.

If she held individual stocks and bonds then LCF was not the first time she'd invested in investments with a risk of 100% loss. But whether she knew what she was doing or not is irrelevant as she is eligible for compensation regardless (and therefore her heirs in turn).

dunstonh said:

Unfortunately, the Government is part of the problem.  By refunding people, they are allowing people to continue to make silly decisions and not take the care required as the expectation is that the taxpayers will pick up the bill.   The money would be better spent giving the regulator and authorities more resources to raise awareness and deal with the scammers.

People in third world countries with no compensation mechanism fall for scams too. Nobody invests in a Ponzi scam thinking "if it turns out to be a scam I can just get compensation from the FSCS or the taxpayer, eventually".

LCF was a regulatory failure and when the Government screws up the taxpayer pays. Nobody else is going to. If the NHS chops the wrong arm off a patient or a council causes a tower block to burn down the taxpayer has to pay for that as well.

Reaper

Alexland said:

Yes it was despicable but blame also lies at the door of the current bank of england governor who was running the FCA at the time when they decided mini bond scams were not their problem and let these schemes grow and take on new victims unchallenged.

His replacement at the FCA was somebody willing to shake things up and and make sure nothing like this could ever happen again. No of course not. He was somebody picked for being a "safe pair of hands", which is government speak for a person who won't rock the boat by actually doing anything.