Investment in "Investment Opportunities

Malthusian

Giving your money to someone promising 10% guaranteed returns is not nice and trusting. Giving money to a homeless person who says he needs money for the hostel is nice and trusting, possibly to a fault. Giving your money to someone claiming they're going to pay you 10% per annum with no risk is stupid and greedy.

Where does "nice" come into it? If someone was actually going to give you 10%pa with no risk then lending them money is not nice, it's pure self-interest. A nice person might even point out that they'd be able to borrow the money they needed from the banks at a far lower rate than 10%, if this investment of theirs is so secure and profitable.

talexuser

You make a fair point, but there must be a sliding scale between outright greed and desperation, and the sympathy level must slide along to match I guess, nevertheless education should be the answer.

Malthusian

No-one who has money to invest in these schemes is desperate.

BananaRepublic

Malthusian wrote: »

No-one who has money to invest in these schemes is desperate.

They might be desperate after they invest. Some people may well be investing what would be their pension into such schemes only to see them plummet in value.

Glen_Clark wrote: »

I don't like to see the victims of scams derided because some of them are nice trusting people. Deriding the victims also helps the scammers because it prevents victims coming forward.

It is best to be blunt when discussing these get poor quick schemes, and frankly anyone who invests must be gullible or naive. The OP asked a question which suggests a sensible degree of caution.

jimjames

BananaRepublic wrote: »

It is best to be blunt when discussing these get poor quick schemes, and frankly anyone who invests must be gullible or naive. The OP asked a question which suggests a sensible degree of caution.

Maybe naïve and trusting. I do have a issue with some of these adverts and how they can be allowed to get away with what they are saying. On this forum we may be aware that the "guarantees" aren't worth the paper they are written on but to the average person I'd expect they would believe that it does mean something. The wording on these types of investment scams seems to be deliberately done so it hits the type of people who wouldn't know better. Quite horrifying that anyone taking money out of a pension could just hand it over to an investment scam with no comeback when it's all gone. Easy to say they should have known better but if you're not versed in investments the sales pitch could be very enticing.

BananaRepublic

jimjames wrote: »

Maybe naïve and trusting. I do have a issue with some of these adverts and how they can be allowed to get away with what they are saying. On this forum we may be aware that the "guarantees" aren't worth the paper they are written on but to the average person I'd expect they would believe that it does mean something. The wording on these types of investment scams seems to be deliberately done so it hits the type of people who wouldn't know better. Quite horrifying that anyone taking money out of a pension could just hand it over to an investment scam with no comeback when it's all gone. Easy to say they should have known better but if you're not versed in investments the sales pitch could be very enticing.

I didn't bother to look at the web site, as I was happy to take dunstonh's post as gospel. However, having now looked at the web site, I can see that many people will assume this is kosher. It is a UK web site, and hence governed by UK advertising regulations.

I quote: "The Bond has been created to guarantee investors' capital at all times via an insurance policy that has been tailored to the Bond issuer's unique business model"

Basically you are not allowed to make false claims in an advert. So, either this is genuine, or they are out and out crooks, and the idea is to do a runner after trousering client's fees.

Thoughts?

Reaper

BananaRepublic wrote: »

It is a UK web site, and hence governed by UK advertising regulations...

Basically you are not allowed to make false claims in an advert. So, either this is genuine, or they are out and out crooks, and the idea is to do a runner after trousering client's fees.

Thoughts?

I would be amazed if there really is a proper LLoyds backed capital guarantee in place.

If you are thinking of the Advertising Standards Authority then is a weak body that really only works on established companies that care about their reputation. Even if you were to report them and they agreed it was misleading they would wait to see if it got changed. If not it would go on a list of non-compliant sites that nobody looks at, and then finally get passed to the local Trading Standards who would eventually get round to doing their own investigation, at least until they found out the director is living in Spain at which point they would pretty much give up.

BananaRepublic

Reaper wrote: »

I would be amazed if there really is a proper LLoyds backed capital guarantee in place.

If you are thinking of the Advertising Standards Authority then is a weak body that really only works on established companies that care about their reputation. Even if you were to report them and they agreed it was misleading they would wait to see if it got changed. If not it would go on a list of non-compliant sites that nobody looks at, and then finally get passed to the local Trading Standards who would eventually get round to doing their own investigation, at least until they found out the director is living in Spain at which point they would pretty much give up.

If they knowingly make false claims, which is I think what you are suggesting, and commit fraud aren't they liable to prosecution under UK law? Or is company law such that you can defraud people, wind up the company having taking out a healthy salary and dividends, then carry on as normal?

Reaper

BananaRepublic wrote: »

If they knowingly make false claims, which is I think what you are suggesting, and commit fraud aren't they liable to prosecution under UK law? Or is company law such that you can defraud people, wind up the company having taking out a healthy salary and dividends, then carry on as normal?

There is a difference here between theory and practice.

As Dunstonh has said it has no office address and a director living abroad, so there is nobody to sue in this country. The FCA has 370 pages of unauthorised companies illegally targeting UK traders, mostly based abroad. Only a handful will ever appear in court.
https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/unauthorised-firms-individuals

I haven't downloaded the brochure for this investment and have not attempted to validate the claims, but if you want to take it further then do and if you believe it is fraudulent get it added to the FCA warnings register, and pass it on the Action Fraud. There is little more that can be done.

Reaper

By the way according to the web site "Investment Opportunities is a trading style of Direct Property 2015 Limited".

Direct Property 2015 is owned by a single person living in Spain. It was set up roughly a year ago and has yet to file its first accounts. Its stated objective is "Buying and selling of own real estate".

It's hard to think of a worse place to buy a complicated unregulated investment involving debt arbitrage.