London Capital and Finance

robatwork

dunstonh said:

Alexland said:

It would be better for the taxpayer if the government were compensating people by recovering assets from those that took the money and were responsible for the regulatory failings...

Police time is better served helping people block motorways it appears.

I've rarely felt so insulated!

Sledger

Alexland said:

GDB2222 said:

Excellent news. I had not heard that, and thanks for correcting me.  Worth repeating.

It would be better for the taxpayer if the government were compensating people by recovering assets from those that took the money and were responsible for the regulatory failings...

Good question as why the HMRC,SFO,Treasury and FSCS jointly never carried out an unexplained wealth orders on LCF key players rather than S&W carrying out Civil action against 13 which will have a mega fee cost at £1200/hr eating into recovery where the FSCS is also affected. If the S&W case fails which I understand is a first,what then as to where the assets went.  4 years + recently revealed that the SFO took action against Andy Thompson who is soon facing jail for a mere sum of £100,000 and contempt of Court. Not sure why that minor issue took so long and no announcement of him being charged. There is no mention of him as LCF director allowing £20 million of deposits going into personal Bank accounts of key players and transferring the rest of the £236Million to his chums so called companies which included the so called LCF GST Trustee Sedgewick as director.  LCF is always being referred to as a failed business rather than a PONZI scheme but note Lord Razzall made this comment on MJS Capital where he was a Director " told administrators he suspected it was using money from new investors to pay the old - the definition of a Ponzi scheme.                        https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrIQZPqNvZiyswAjyd3Bwx.;_ylu=Y29sbwMEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1660331883/RO=10/RU=https://www.standard.co.uk/business/collapsed-mjs-bond-company-suspected-of-being-a-ponzi-scheme-a4273306.html/RK=2/RS=PzPDl1whoYkrM9woY74HM0JASrY-

Malthusian

Sledger said:

Good question as why the HMRC,SFO,Treasury and FSCS jointly never carried out an unexplained wealth orders on LCF key players rather than S&W carrying out Civil action against 13 which will have a mega fee cost at £1200/hr eating into recovery where the FSCS is also affected. 

Because there is no point reinventing the wheel. As the FSCS and the Government have compensated LCF investors, any recovered assets will go to the FSCS / Government one way or the other.
The wheels of justice grind slowly and they grind exceeding small, especially in UK fraud cases. Top lawyers cost top fees no matter who hires them.
Much of the money has already been spent on flash cars or moved offshore where it cannot realistically be recovered.
Unlike the USA the UK does not take fraud seriously. I would not be at all surprised if nobody saw the inside of a jail cell over LCF, and the key players successfully mounted the "a bigger boy did it and ran away" defence. (I just ran a failed business guv which ain't no crime, the misselling of its bonds was done by third parties and nothing to do with me.)
If the investigations conclude with no criminal convictions, LCF's ringleaders would be able to sue anyone who called it a Ponzi scheme for libel, and the default position is that they would win.

Sledger

Malthusian said:

Because there is no point reinventing the wheel. As the FSCS and the Government have compensated LCF investors, any recovered assets will go to the FSCS / Government one way or the other.
The wheels of justice grind slowly and they grind exceeding small, especially in UK fraud cases. Top lawyers cost top fees no matter who hires them.
Much of the money has already been spent on flash cars or moved offshore where it cannot realistically be recovered.
Unlike the USA the UK does not take fraud seriously. I would not be at all surprised if nobody saw the inside of a jail cell over LCF, and the key players successfully mounted the "a bigger boy did it and ran away" defence. (I just ran a failed business guv which ain't no crime, the misselling of its bonds was done by third parties and nothing to do with me.)
If the investigations conclude with no criminal convictions, LCF's ringleaders would be able to sue anyone who called it a Ponzi scheme for libel, and the default position is that they would win.

Had the SFO/FCA/HMRC issued an UWO the day LCF got tumbled there would have been a greater chance of recovery and let those explain the source of the money being laundered. instead they are out to this day free as a bird covering their tracks. Timothy Schools just banged up for 14 years and Paul Seakens Linked to LCF via Prime Resorts also got jailed but it took almost a decade. Lord Razzle statement was almost an admission to what ES called a suspected PONZI scheme     https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrJO2Wd1gRjV0gAbwN3Bwx.;_ylu=Y29sbwMEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj/RV=2/RE=1661290270/RO=10/RU=https://40plus.standard.co.uk/business/collapsed-mjs-bond-company-suspected-of-being-a-ponzi-scheme-a4273306.html#:~:text=Jim%20Armitage%20%40ArmitageJim%2029%20October%202019%20A%20key,old%20-%20the%20definition%20of%20a%20Ponzi%20scheme./RK=2/RS=gRhJFJw8XGwEzA4YwaboHIb2TtY-

jimjames

Sledger said:

Alexland said:

GDB2222 said:

Excellent news. I had not heard that, and thanks for correcting me.  Worth repeating.

It would be better for the taxpayer if the government were compensating people by recovering assets from those that took the money and were responsible for the regulatory failings...

Good question as why the HMRC,SFO,Treasury and FSCS jointly never carried out an unexplained wealth orders on LCF key players rather than S&W carrying out Civil action against 13 which will have a mega fee cost at £1200/hr eating into recovery where the FSCS is also affected.

How did your investment you'd said you were happy with at p6 here go in the end? Did you get paid out before they crashed?

Sledger

I was also with Lending Crowd Jim and selected 10 companies and factored in if one defaulted, I would break even but was lucky and averaged more than the LCF 8% as I averaged 10.4% annually and that rate too fell into your too good to be true category but was true. Ratesetter was 6% return and then panic stage when the return was frozen, and drip fed back. If LCF were a genuine company sporting the FCA badge back then along with the PWC audited accounts gave it a form of legitimacy and could have achieved 8% if it were as the LCF IM implied a legitimate company when I made the comment on Page 8. Bailin long 2017 post on SURGE which I sent to LCF to explain away and after their pathetic response I researched on google JRM who I had a meeting with in their LCF Eastbourne old printworks office where he sported a LCF Senior Accounts Manager business card and up came the red flag.  I fail to see why Bailin comments got a bit of slagging on here as without his posts the alarm bell would never have rung especially the single Loan to Andrew Thomson. Then somebody posted on Sedgewick our GST trustee being struck off in 2018 realisation came in that it may be a Ponzi scheme which it basically was as indicated in Jan 2019 Damn Lies only 6 loan companies in 2017 paid to companies set up by former LCF directors and past associates. The only truth in the LCF IM was no Defaults as when you loan to self and money launder it away the only default is when the Ponzi scheme got tumbled. How PWC who had access to the loan book never uncovered what Bailin surge post revealed raises a big Q. If LCF were a proper honest company and adhered to their business Model, I maintain there is no reason why they could not have made 8% especially when funds poured in with a 7% spread on deposits versus loans.       

masonic

Sledger said:

I was also with Lending Crowd Jim and selected 10 companies and factored in if one defaulted, I would break even but was lucky and averaged more than the LCF 8% as I averaged 10.4% annually and that rate too fell into your too good to be true category but was true.

Just because you happened to be lucky, doesn't mean the headline rate wasn't too good to be true. Not everyone lost money through an investment with LCF, but anyone in the lucky category would be rightly lambasted if they came here suggesting it wasn't too good to be true. Returns of 10%+ in P2P were not realistic when bad debt is taken into account. That doesn't mean nobody could achieve them (I achieved 12% at SavingStream, now Lendy in administration, while later investors lost their shirts), but on average you should expect less, and the rate was set with the expectation that there would be losses. It certainly wasn't true that the rate you achieved at Lending Crowd was guaranteed, and they didn't make any claim to that effect either. The reason P2P companies now have to give all of their clients an "appropriateness test" is because many believed the headline rates were what they would achieve and that things like loan security, provision funds, etc, would be effective in preventing them being exposed to losses.

There are many other instances of mini-bonds going bad, with investors suffering 100% loss of capital, where there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by the bond issuer. Take Fluid ISA Bond for example. It went into administration earlier this year with no prospect of a distribution to bondholders. By all accounts it was just a victim of the pandemic.

These are just the risks of investing in this asset class. You have to accept the risk that you may be making an investment with crooks, lending to crooks, or simply funding ventures that are doomed to failure.

Sledger

true Masonic but these firms going bust with no evidence of wrongdoing is a bit ? If a legitimate Company (unlike LCF, BM etc scammers) and are not transparent with the risks and deviate from the IM like paying a sourcing company a high commission its doomed to fail but there is no evidence of wrongdoing. But in reality, there is wrongdoing of deceit as if the IM stated 25% being paid out   nobody in the right mind would invest. Capital Bridge Liverpool based actually stated they were charging 20% in their Brochure which is beggars' belief. I pursued this as a test as it gave a Brighton number which was no other than SURGE and Aaron Phillips who sported a St James Palace fake business card let to a trail of concerns that I reported to FCA Bailey and got a 1 liner reply "This is interesting" Capital Bridge continued for a further year implying FCA did zilch. Our financial (lack of) Control system along with Companies House is a fraudsters paradise to launder money.

My Lending Crowd 10 selected companies had risks and there were numerous monthly late payments of up to 3 months which was cause for concern but were genuinely backed with security and all finally got paid in full as it was operating as a legitimate company.  LCF by contrast boasted GST trustees with 100 years of experience. But GST was a 1-man band set up 1 Pound Dormant Company so how on earth could Sedgewick fulfil his Trustee role of securing assets on the supposedly claimed SME Loans. He was doing the complete opposite of his GST Role making Loans to a limited few companys which were his and other former LCF directors and associates  companies.  All LCF loan (Self Gifted) beneficiaries claim No Wrongdoing as did Timothy Child to the very end in Court but it failed to convince the judge. Let's see what happens to Andy Pandy when he appears in Court in a few weeks' time. His lawyers already appear to think he is guilty by saying he should be spared Jail due to mental Health Issues. Where on Earth is a lawyer coming from with this, lets release all jailed fraudsters who suffer mental after their theft.

Reaper

masonic said:

Take Fluid ISA Bond for example. It went into administration earlier this year with no prospect of a distribution to bondholders. By all accounts it was just a victim of the pandemic.

I'm not sure Fluid was faultless. They seemed to be selling to unsophisticated OAPs and as for their secured loans:

Fluid’s brochure makes much of the fact that its bridging loans are secured on property.

However, investors are not investing directly in secured loans, but in loans to Fluid Lending Limited, which in turn uses the money for secured loans. These loans to Fluid Lending Limited are not secured (there is no indication that they are in the investment literature, and Companies House shows no charges against Fluid Lending Limited at time of writing).

https://www.bondreview.co.uk/2019/10/15/we-review-fluid-isas-ifisa-bonds-paying-6-per-year/

robatwork

Sledger said: St James Palace fake business card let to a trail of concerns that I reported 

I did enjoy that (freudian?) slip