'Fine art investment' - beware!

Ian_Cartwright

My mother, who is 94, has invested £2,000 in what was described as an asset backed ISA with a company called Treasury Consulting Group. The person who first called her, Bridget Bentley, claimed to be endorsed by United Utilities because my mother had held shares for 15 years and she was given a 'perk' of expert financial advice. This gave her apparent credibility and my mother's ear. Bridget pursuaded her that the money she had in her bank was effectively falling rapidly in value due to current interest rates and worse ahead. She said she would be better off trusting her to invest in assets such as precious metals, coins, rare books, works of art. They were guaranteed to return at least 6% in interest.

I found out about what my mother had done when she told me rather timidly about it 4 days ago, some two and a half months after she had written the cheque. I spoke to Bridget Bentley a couple of days ago, and I can see why my mother chose to invest. She is a very personable, intelligent, knowledgible woman and she had a plausible answer to everything I queried. The main thing which did not stack up was the endorsement by United Utilities. Despite her saying their name appeared at the bottom of every shareholder's report over the last 12 years, it didn't, and the person I spoke to at Equinity who deals with U U share dealing, had not heard of them. The company is not registered with the Financial Conduct Authority, and the person I spoke to at Equinity said it was probably a scam. She said Bridget's explanation as to why they weren't registered, being that they did not hold clients' funds, but used clearing banks which were safer for the client.  In this my mother's case, she wrote a cheque to a company called Arabella Bespoke Interiors Ltd, which appeared to have been founded 1 year ago in interior design. Their website is full of stock images, one being repeated, and two being labelled as 'recent work'. She said the the claim by Bridget that they were bound by MIFID 2 (a European directive) was 'smoke and mirrors'.

In the same way as mentioned earlier, my mother's 'contract' arrived by DHL courier from Spain. A very well dressed charming chap called Colin came two days later from over 100 miles away to take away the cheque, see her sign the contract and photograph it. He was apparently someone sourced from a local council (not so local at 100 + miles away!) My mother had been asked by another independent 'Compliance Officer', David Stein, by phone ahead of Colin's visit to confirm that she was willing to sign a contract. The very minimal contract is headed 'Account Opening' with 12 months commitment and £2,000 and a reference number.

I have reported the situation to Action Fraud www.actionfraud.police.uk  The lady I spoke to there thought it was a likely scam. She gave me a crime number and recommended I spoke to my mother's bank, HSBC quoting the number. After initially being told that they could not help as my mother wrote a cheque of her own volition, when I said that she did not know what she was doing, they gave me a number to call to see if they might consider reimbursing her. I shall try that, but I have since been advised that the grounds suggested (Authorised Pushed Payment Scam) do not apply.

I have related this tale just hopefully to help further raise awareness. I have more details, should anyone be interested.

We are hoping that the 'investment' does come good, but will not be surprised if that £2,000 goes down the drain. Thankfully, my mother was not suckered in to investing £25,000, as Bridget was recommending!

P.S. When I referred Bridget to this thread, she was quick to point out that the company mentioned was not them. Their London Office is Amadeus House, Floral Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9DP.

verybigchris

Two quick points:

1. Are you absolutely certain your mum only parted with £2k? That's far smaller than the sums we normally see in these scams, and it seems like they've put in quite a bit of work for it. Is it possible your mum is embarrassed and hasn't completely come clean about the amounts?
2. Your mum's details will now be sold to other scammers. Some will try a similar scam, others may try and pretend they can get her money back from the scammers, just as soon as she pays their "fee" of course. You need to tell her to treat every single cold call she gets as an out-and-out scam, and not even begin to entertain the idea that they might be genuine.
   

G&M's_mum

Ian I'm so sorry to hear of this. A journalist got wind of what my mum's scammers were up to and found they were very good at shapeshifting business names and office addresses so it wouldn't surprise me if it was part of the same operation, it sounds very similar. They were actually operating out of Morocco, despite the UK phone numbers, but doubtless a few UK people desperate for money and with few scruples have been recruited too. 

I hope this doesn't dent her self-confidence too much and fingers crossed you find some redress down the line. We've learned that a call-screening phone, so only programmed 'safe' numbers can get straight through, is a godsend. Best wishes. 

John464

As I understand it, when you pick up the phone its best to say nothing and definitely not press any buttons - until you recognise the caller.
If its an auto dialler it will then hang up after a few seconds, assume your number is inactive and delete your number from its database.

TBC15

Title says it all.

If there isn’t legislation to protect the venerable, there should be.

MaxiRobriguez

John464 said:

As I understand it, when you pick up the phone its best to say nothing and definitely not press any buttons - until you recognise the caller.
If its an auto dialler it will then hang up after a few seconds, assume your number is inactive and delete your number from its database.

The best method is not to answer it at all. Unfortunately that's not an option for many (me included, as I only have a work phone and I simply cannot ignore an unknown number). Second best approach is to answer the call but hang up as soon as possible once know it's a fishing call. If the voice sounds robotic/computer generated - hang up immediately. If the voice is real, then do not give away any personal details, do not say "yes" to leading questions etc. Hang up as soon as possible when it's clear it's an unwanted call.

MaxiRobriguez

Golden rules to share with your elderly relatives:

1) If they have cold called you about investments, it's a scam.
2) If they tell you about guaranteed 6% returns, it's a scam.
3) If they threaten you, it's a scam.
4) If they sound foreign but give an traditional English name, it's a scam.

Do not be afraid to hang up the phone - it is not rude to do so.

There's also plenty of videos on Youtube showing how these scammers ("Investment companies", "HMRC", "Tech support" etc) operate. Pop in a search for Jim Browning or Kitboga to see just how rinse and repeat their tactics are.

MarkCarnage

Do not be afraid to hang up the phone - it is not rude to do so.

This. x10.

I try to ignore calls from unidentified numbers, but we do have a couple of friends who have blocked their number so comes up as 'withheld' or 'unavailable'......which makes it difficult.

I either hang up on the scammers, or if they call back, they are made to wish they never had. I tend to find I never get repeat calls from these people...and indeed the calls in general stop for a while. 

Worst I ever had was from a bunch of scumbags in the UK who were a debt tracing agency, pursuing some defaulter. Turned out they had been given a phone number which had been wrongly transcribed as ours. However, we had calls several times a day on and off for weeks, until I got extremely directional with them, reported them to the FCA, and also managed to find out where their office was (Yorkshire)  and threatened to visit in person.....never heard from them again! 

Silvertabby

TBC15 said:

Title says it all.

If there isn’t legislation to protect the venerable, there should be.

I know this is a serious subject, but this did make me laugh.

Just got to love spellcheck/auto correct !

Chickereeeee

MarkCarnage said:

Do not be afraid to hang up the phone - it is not rude to do so.

I try to ignore calls from unidentified numbers, but we do have a couple of friends who have blocked their number so comes up as 'withheld' or 'unavailable'......which makes it difficult.

I have noticed that calls from the doctor come up as 'number unavailable'. Presumably to stop patients calling his private number!