London Capital and Finance

bail-in

I do not see how any reasonable person reading the London Capital and Finance mini-bond review could conclude that the London Capital and Finance Investment Bond is a safe investment. Even if so, the FCA has ensured the application process clearly points out the high risk and appropriate certification of investors. However, as it is a self certification process, I have little doubt that some investors, knowing full well the high risk, chasing the high interest rates, will choose to invest irrespective of the fact that they do not match the required investor certification.

For the record, I would not invest in LC&F nor do I recommend anyone to do so because it is highly risky, as pointed out clearly in posts here including the London Capital and Finance Investment Bond review and backed up with data.

Please follow the Forum Rules and the recent Forum Team posts in the LC&F threads. In your posts please be accurate, truthful, just, respectful and tolerant. To those continuing to villify me, please do not continue to do so or incite others to do so. Do not continue to have my posts deleted if they do not violate Forum Rules. Do not misleadingly alter the paragraph above, use it out of context, or use any of my words in my posts to mean the opposite of my intended and stated meaning. Thank you.

ValiantSon

bail-in wrote: »

Please follow the Forum Rules and the recent Forum Team posts in the LC&F threads. In your posts please be accurate, truthful, just, respectful and tolerant. To those continuing to villify me, please do not continue to do so or incite others to do so. Do not continue to have my posts deleted if they do not violate Forum Rules. Do not misleadingly alter the paragraph above, use it out of context, or use any of my words in my posts, to mean the opposite of my meaning. Thank you.

I, for one, have done none of the things you complain about, and I have seen no one else doing so either. If posts have been deleted that is because a moderator believes that it breached the forum rules. Reporting a post doesn't automatically lead to it being deleted.

bowlhead99

ValiantSon wrote: »

. If posts have been deleted that is because a moderator believes that it breached the forum rules. Reporting a post doesn't automatically lead to it being deleted.

If enough people hit the 'spam' button on a post it is automatically 'hidden / removed until a moderator can check it' or some such language, allowing the forum to essentially self-police and ensure we get rid of the incessant adverts for kitchens or fake IDs which appear at all hours of the night when moderators aren't around to manually react to reports.

Perhaps the same happened to some of bail-in's posts ; I don't know to what extent a moderator or board guide actually reads and exercises a value-judgement on content of posts that have received a lot of spam flags, or just goes with the consensus as enough reason to keep the post suppressed; but I do know that some earlier posts of bail-in's were removed before they requested reinstatement or a chance to post again, because he told us so.

dunstonh

The LC&F threads do appear to get culled periodically. This includes posts by others and not just bail-in. I doubt the spam button is responsible for all of them and the mods tend to only look at threads if someone is reporting posts the old way.

In the interests of transparency, I used the spam button on a recent post by bail-in that gave contact details. It came across more spammy than serving any other purpose.

bowlhead99

bail-in wrote: »

I do not see how any reasonable person reading the London Capital and Finance mini-bond review could...

...not get bored to tears before the end of the scintillating second act ?

However, as it is a self certification process, I have little doubt that some investors, knowing full well the high risk, chasing the high interest rates, will choose to invest irrespective of the fact that they do not match the required investor certification.

I don't doubt that either, but I do tend to think that where someone is so greedy that they will deliberately sign off that they are a sophisticated or HNW investor who does not want the regulatory protections associated with 'retail' deposits or investments - for fear of missing out on a too-good-to-be-true investment that is only allowed to be invested in by people who certify that they fully understand all the risks - pretty much deserves whatever negative returns they get.

Another school of thought is that some people through no fault of their own are dim witted and need to be protected from themselves, so even if they deliberately lie on a form to get something that isn't suitable, they should still expect the industry's collective mercy and protection.

For the record, I would not invest in LC&F nor do I recommend anyone to do so because it is highly risky, as pointed out clearly in posts here including the review and backed up with data.

Basically the short answer is as it always had been, this is an investment that's incomparable to a cash deposit because it is entirely possible to lose all your money, and where it is next to impossible to conduct adequate due diligence on the underlying investments held behind the loan into which you invest. You are not not supposed to invest unless you can afford to lose the money, and your family and friends and everyone on the internet forums will laugh at you if you lie and say you understand it and then later lose your money and want to complain. That's all you need to know.

It doesn't really need many pages of scrolling down a "review" online to understand what due diligence other people have done, nor calls for other anonymous strangers online people to post a "review" of whether or not they got all their money back when they made their private investment (as your experience may differ anyway).

Malthusian

bowlhead99 wrote: »

I don't doubt that either, but I do tend to think that where someone is so greedy that they will deliberately sign off that they are a sophisticated or HNW investor who does not want the regulatory protections associated with 'retail' deposits or investments - for fear of missing out on a too-good-to-be-true investment that is only allowed to be invested in by people who certify that they fully understand all the risks - pretty much deserves whatever negative returns they get.

I've now seen quite a lot of these self-certification forms, and most of them are as easy to ignore as that blather about cookies that now appears on every website, or the small print that comes up when you take out a mobile phone contract.

I don't necessarily disagree that people are ignoring them out of greed and FOMO, but I still have some sympathy.

Standard practice among respected companies that offer high-risk investments to retail investors is to either require them to go via a regulated intermediary, or, if they want to go direct, complete a checklist that asks "Have you invested in a product like this before" "Are you prepared to risk 100% loss of your money" etc etc for about half a dozen questions or more. Anyone who ticks "no" is either politely declined or asked further questions. If someone ticks "yes" to all of them the company can reasonably say they did everything possible to verify that the investor was high-net-worth or sophisticated.

Self-certification is balls.

bail-in

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Basically the short answer is as it always had been, this is an investment that's incomparable to a cash deposit because it is entirely possible to lose all your money, and where it is next to impossible to conduct adequate due diligence on the underlying investments held behind the loan into which you invest. You are not not supposed to invest unless you can afford to lose the money..... That's all you need to know. .

Now that is to the point. I will give you that. Unfortunately I never was good at precis in school. As for the boring point, the London Capital and Finance Investment Bond review pales in comparison to readings of bills in parliament. Take a pillow with you if ever you have the option of doing so!

robatwork

Weird thread is weird.

bail-in

Mini-bonds | The risks... The Telegraph

All bonds carry risks. The company you lend money to could always go bust, or face cash flow problems that delay interest payments.

Unlike deposits with banks, bonds are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Mini-bonds are normally seen as riskier than other corporate bonds for two reasons:

Mini-bonds, unlike retail bonds, cannot be traded on the stock market. Investors are therefore locked in until the bond matures, even if the firm falls into difficulty.

The rules concerning mini-bonds are less onerous. For instance, issuers or mini-bonds including London Capital and Finance Investment Bond need produce only basic information memoranda for investors.

Vortigern

bail-in wrote: »

Unfortunately I never was good at precis in school.

We'd never have guessed!

I've just seen an ad on Facebook, linking to a "Top Ten ISAs" comparison site, which offered rates of up to 8% - this immediately raised suspicions.

Guess whose ISA was top of the list?

They really are trying to snare unsophisticated investors who would look to Facebook for guidance.