London Capital and Finance

Aretnap

Poorlyone wrote: »

Oh this is a terrible, complicated business....will the other similar bonds that come up on the best bond websites go the same way do you think?

Quiet possibly. Even if run honestly and with the best intentions these products are high risk - much higher risk than the average customer would understand from comforting phrases like "asset backed". And they are not all run with the best intentions. Certainly if they are appearing on websites alongside normal bank accounts then they are being advertised in a way which is highly misleading, some would say downright dishonest. If you're looking for someone trustworthy to look after your money I would not start with someone who advertises junk minibonds in a way that implies they are comparable to savings accounts.

Sledger

To find this MSE Forum site I type in London Capital and Finance and this site always pops up paying 8-12% .https://www.renewable-bonds.com/RenewableBonds/Investment

The site tells you very ;little compared to the LCF extensive glossy advertising and claims.

Just below it is another link "Find London capital and finance bonds" when you hit it you get

| Check this out now https://www.pronto.com/Lots_of_results/Look_no_further and then comes

1).Fully Secured Energy Bonds - Up to 11% Fixed Return Rate.
2).Secured Short-Term Fixed Bond - 12% Fixed Return in 12 Months

No 2 has so many reassuring sales claims but who is the company??? as you have to register which I have just done. I am now going to be awash from Piranhas with phone calls as got this back

Thank You For Requesting More Information An investment consultant will be in touch within 1-2 business days to discuss the details of the investment

;I recall Jim James reporting registered LCF to FCA way back all to no avail. Until recently where heaps more victims may be at risk. due to late FCA action

What does one have to do to kick start the FCA as Blackmore will be next in the news and FCA statement below sounds good but is non effective preventing people getting duped in.

We have the legal power to ban a financial promotion or advert that is unclear, unfair or misleading. This page sets out the action we can take using this power, as well as the steps we usually take in deciding whether to act.
What we can do
If a financial promotion or advert is misleading, we have the legal power under s137S of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to:
get it withdrawn, or
prevent it from being used in the first place
This power acts against the promotion or advert, not the firm itself. (It works differently from other powers we have when firms generally don't comply with our rules, or if their overall systems or approach are poor.)
In deciding whether to act, we consider how a financial promotion or advert could lead to people suffering harm − either:
directly (e.g. taking out a loan for which the real interest you pay is higher than what is advertised), or
indirectly (e.g. you take out home insurance that was advertised as providing cover against theft, you then get burgled and end up spending money because theft was not actually covered)
How we decide whether a promotion should be banned
In considering whether to use our powers under s137S FSMA, we will:
assess the extent to which the financial promotion is unclear, unfair and/or misleading
assess which types of consumers the financial promotion is targeted towards
usually inform the firm of our concerns and give them an opportunity to respond to those concerns (it may on occasion be necessary to use our powers without informing the firm of our concerns beforehand)
If we are not satisfied with the response from the firm, we will consider whether it would be appropriate to ban the advert.
When we decide to use these powers we will issue a notice of direction to the relevant firm explaining what action it must take (which will normally be to withdraw the advert from circulation with immediate effect).

coyrls

Sledger wrote: »

No 2 has so many reassuring sales claims but who is the company??? as you have to register which I have just done. I am now going to be awash from Piranhas with phone calls as got this back

Thank You For Requesting More Information An investment consultant will be in touch within 1-2 business days to discuss the details of the investment

Why on earth did you register?

System

Its scary stuff..especially for your average person whoks struggling anyway and has no means to make the money back again.

Reaper

For a while MSE invited people working for regulators etc to answer questions from the forum. Maybe we could ask MSE to revive it as there are many questions I would love to ask the FCA such as:

* The advertising rules are being ignored by 3rd parties giving the impression high risk unregulated investments are savings accounts. The FCA has the power to remove these adverts but is doing nothing. Why? (click here for examples)
* Why is the FCA not listing the ultimate beneficiary companies that pay these deceptive affiliates on their warnings page?
* Why is the FCA not asking for more powers to take actions against the final company in the chain that pays the affiliates?
* Why are companies able to endlessly move their accounting date to avoid submitting accounts? (eg they can shorten the period by 1 day unlimited times for a 3 month extension each time) Why are you not lobbying MPs to have this loophole closed? (click here for an example)
* Do you think it is right that a company can advertise unregulated investments directly to the public even if not authorised to do so, provided they are regulated in an unrelated area (eg authorised to do Claims Management but advertising and selling mini-bonds)
* Do you agree the Section 21 loophole that allows completely unregulated companies to advertise directly to investors is too open to abuse?
* Should any promotion aimed at investors be banned from using the words "FCA Authorised" if the FCA authorisation is not investor related and FSCS cover does not apply?
* Any chance we could stop banks using the word "Bond" for savings accounts? Because it is so misused the word currently fails to rings alarm bells with users when inadvertently putting money into unregulated mini-bonds.

I'm sure we can come up with lots more.

System

Theres a long article about all this On the evening standards website on the 10th Jan ( if you can even trust that!) I wonder if Martin Lewis would know what to do before anyone else gets caught uo / deceived by those misleading comparison sites?.

jimjames

{text removed by MSE Forum Team}

Another article in Evening Standard about LCF and the companies it lent money to

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/bond-firm-lcf-lent-millions-on-pet-projects-a4044866.html

Also an interesting update from LCF today passing management to the trustees

https://damn-lies-and-statistics.blogspot.com/2019/01/london-capital-finance-update.html

Remember that the trustee company Global Security Trustees Ltd is now owned by a company in Malta

https://damn-lies-and-statistics.blogspot.com/2019/01/london-capital-global-security-trustees.html

Sledger

LCF just announced

"Update Tuesday 22nd January 2019
With respect to the announcement on 28 December 2018 by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that it is conducting an investigation into the affairs of London Capital and Finance plc (LCF), the board of directors of LCF has invited the Security Trustee, Global Security Trustees Limited (GST), to step in to manage the business of LCF for the time being. This invitation was made by the LCF board as being in the best interests of the bondholders. GST has accepted that invitation as being in the bondholders best interests.
We will provide more information as soon as possible as it becomes available"


So what happens Now??? Does that mean
{text removed by MSE Forum Team} .of Buss Morton Lawyers the GST trustee " Has accepted the Invitation" and will have his work cut out .along with the other GST director {text removed by MSE Forum Team} who has two identities South African and United Kingdom with different dates of births on Companies House. They will need a meeting with {text removed by MSE Forum Team} to unravel all this.


Has any body gone down the trail of LCF listed 13 people on Companies House where this one comes up CAA registers Ltd which in turn has a long trail of 21 companies all going back to {text removed by MSE Forum Team} address many with European links some dental companies as recall {text removed by MSE Forum Team} had a dental company) I am so dizzy with all this and somebody really needs to get their teeth into all this. What do you think the FCA take is on this thishttps://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/upT4f2LKB6yjq9ryZf0tlSwI5k8/appointments. Somebody

Sledger

Reapers post 686 Not trying to go off track but making the comment on false advertising as in LCF case

this morning when I logged on amongst all the news flashes this one on Dragons den re bitcon article looked really convining but its a scam so why is it not filtered out by some regulatory body. before it pops up as a news flash

Below are two of many links but I type in Dragons Den Bitcom SCAM where these results take second place. Surely my news plash pop up should state Beware Dragons Den bitcom scam not the other way around.

ttps://bitcoinpricemarket.com/bbc/dragons_den_uk_invested_bitcoin...The Biggest Deal In Dragons' Den History, That Can Make YOU Rich In Just 7 Days! (Seriously) - These two university mates created, Bitcoin Trader, a simple push-button bitcoin trading platform.
https://www.patienthelp.org/news/dragons-den-bitcoin-trader-program.html

People Are Getting Rich with Dragon's Den Bitcoin Trader ...
https://www.patienthelp.org/news/dragons-den-bitcoin-trader...
Can This Dragons Den Bitcoin Revolution System Make YOU Rich? By anirudh on February 24, 2018 in Health News Sources say that two best friends just landed one of the biggest deals in the history of BBC’s hit show, Dragon’s Den.

eskbanker

Sledger wrote: »

this morning when I logged on amongst all the news flashes this one on Dragons den re bitcon article looked really convining but its a scam so why is it not filtered out by some regulatory body. before it pops up as a news flash

You don't say what you're logging in to or where your source of news flashes is, but it would seem you have much higher expectations of regulators than they can ever live up to!

Clearly there is a responsibility on the FCA to clamp down on marketing carried out by businesses they regulate (or unregulated businesses conducting activities that should only be done by regulated businesses), and hence much of the comment in the preceding pages about LCF's advertising and the FCA's belated attempts to do something about it.

However, expecting regulators to be able to control, or even monitor, what's being published by unregulated scammers is somewhat ambitious! There is an argument (as seen on the blog that jimjames has linked to) that content providers such as Facebook should make more strenuous efforts to weed out scams but even if they went down that route it would only ever be reactive (in response to sufficient complaints) rather than proactively managing content before publication.

You're quite entitled to complain to whoever is publishing the scam stories you're seeing (although many of these will be driven by your browsing history) but essentially extrapolating that to regulation of the internet is quite a leap, so the onus remains very much on the reader to be aware of what can reliably be treated as 'news'....

Sledger wrote: »

bitcon article

Nice Freudian slip!