London Capital and Finance

Trevg2004

Only just discovered that they are being investigated today when my quarterly interest payment was not received. Tried to contact them and looked on their website.

Does this mean that we have lost our total investment ?

eskbanker

Trevg2004 wrote: »

Do not touch them.
They are under investigation by the FCA since 18th December.
All assets & bank accounts frozen including my investment.

Trevg2004 wrote: »

Only just discovered that they are being investigated today when my quarterly interest payment was not received. Tried to contact them and looked on their website.

Does this mean that we have lost our total investment ?

It would be worth scrolling back over at least the last couple of pages of this thread to catch up on the discussion about what's happened and what it may mean....

Aretnap

Trevg2004 wrote: »

Only just discovered that they are being investigated today when my quarterly interest payment was not received. Tried to contact them and looked on their website.

Does this mean that we have lost our total investment ?

Much discussion over the last few pages of this thread; basically it's too early to know if investors will get anything back but the signs are not great - if I were you I would prepare for the worst. I hope you didn't have too much invested.

Jelli

I can't comprehend how it's possible to say one thing but deliver another thing when regulated by FCA. So if I wanted an ISA but ended with a Current Account would that be illegal?

I gave a regulated company money that was advertised as lending to businesses but seems nothing was being lent. I don't get it. If I did that I would go to jail.

Could I give out my account number and sort code and say it's for the RSPCA and let the money roll-in?

eskbanker

Jelli wrote: »

I can't comprehend how it's possible to say one thing but deliver another thing when regulated by FCA. So if I wanted an ISA but ended with a Current Account would that be illegal?

But the issue here isn't substituting one product for another, if you opened an ISA with them then it's an ISA you still have, even if it's ultimately worthless.

Jelli wrote: »

I gave a regulated company money that was advertised as lending to businesses but seems nothing was being lent. I don't get it. If I did that I would go to jail.

Obviously it's premature to judge (and certainly to post publicly) whether or not there has been any illegality, but if the company directors are proven to have acted fraudulently then they should expect to be brought to justice for this, although how much comfort that would be to investors is another matter....

masonic

Jelli wrote: »

I can't comprehend how it's possible to say one thing but deliver another thing when regulated by FCA. So if I wanted an ISA but ended with a Current Account would that be illegal?

I gave a regulated company money that was advertised as lending to businesses but seems nothing was being lent. I don't get it. If I did that I would go to jail.

The LCF product you invested in was unregulated. LCF had FCA authorisation, but most if not all of its activities fell outside of the FCA's jurisdiction. You can't really compare regulated products like cash ISAs and current accounts with these bonds. This is why these bonds are not suitable for consumers to invest in and why the FCA (eventually) took action against them being sold to consumers.

Only time will tell whether actual crimes have been committed beyond the unlawful marketing of products.

Jelli

Got an email today from LCF that was replying to a question I submitted ages ago in December lol. I was asking if I should wait until the xmas holidays were over before investing again so I wasn't waiting for it to be actioned.

Their email went...

(02/01/2019)
"Good Morning,

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately LCF is currently unable to accept any new business and we are unsure of a time period.

Kind Regards

{Text removed by MSE Forum Team}

Loans and Operations Assistant"

I suppose the positive thing to take from that is a person is still employed there. Notice the use of the word 'loan' at the bottom? That was part of the reason why I invested. Loaning to businesses.

eskbanker

Jelli wrote: »

Got an email today from LCF that was replying to a question I submitted ages ago in December lol. I was asking if I should wait until the xmas holidays were over before investing again so I wasn't waiting for it to be actioned.

[...]

I suppose the positive thing to take from that is people are still employed there.

Another positive thing to take is that if they'd replied faster, there'd have been a danger that you'd have sunk even more money into their scheme, so whatever you were thinking of adding can now be invested somewhere safer (which shouldn't be difficult to find....).

jimjames

Jelli wrote: »

I can't comprehend how it's possible to say one thing but deliver another thing when regulated by FCA. So if I wanted an ISA but ended with a Current Account would that be illegal?

As above the product you bought is not regulated by the FCA. As was highlighted very early on in this thread (but a technical point likely to be missed by most people) the FCA authorisation was for LCF to sell loans to business, not the sale of bonds to investors.

What I would be interested to know is how the ISA side sits with this. Can you confirm what sort of ISA it was? Was it shown as an IF ISA or S&S ISA? There are specific rules for ISA transfers so it would be interesting to know if those are being adhered to.

Aretnap

Made the FT today - the report doesn't really add much info but here it is for those interested

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiD34TC8s_fAhVMzRoKHYb8AJwQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2Fc61c93de-0e98-11e9-a3aa-118c761d2745&psig=AOvVaw0GVw13xCrAaa3ug7kmMEjT&ust=1546545770252383

Or Google "Watchdog freezes UK provider of mini-bond investments" to avoid the paywal if you're not a subscriber.