Consumer Wealth

Dejavue

Does anybody in the forum's have any information on Consumer wealth limited?
They were acting as my financial advisor and invested my pension money on a platform called Novia, I have since been informed by Novia that I no longer have a financial advisor.
I have heard nothing from Consumer wealth on this.....
Are they allowed to do this????

Paul_Herring

https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_FirmDetailsPage?id=001b000000j2oQmAAI indicates that they've applied to cancel their authorisation. Some time ago actually:

Sub Status Applied to Cancel
Sub Status Effective Date This is the date from which the Current Sub Status has applied 19/04/2018

And their website is "being redeveloped":

http://www.consumer-wealth.co.uk/
(Google search matches the postcode in cached pages on that website with that in the FSA page.)

Looks like they're not longer advising anyone currently - they're certainly not actively looking for customers at the moment.

I suggest your first actions should be to (1) get a replacement advisor, if you require one, soonish, (2) determine what, if anything, you've been charged since April.

---

This does, of course, presume that the two links above refer to exactly the same company as the one you've been dealing with.

dunstonh

Consumer Wealth was the end company used by a cold calling arrangement with a company called Pension Safe. The cold calling company was known to lie (such as saying they were carrying out government backed reviews etc)

The company is deauthorising. As seems to be the trend with these cold calling companies. Plus, the company house record show it has had an accountancy period extension. A perfectly valid thing to do in itself. But often used by companies with money problems to hide their accounts from public record.

You should check that
a) Novia are not paying any fees to Consumer Wealth if they are, you should put in an immediate complaint to Consumer Wealth demanding a refund of those fees for not providing a service. Do this whilst they are still regulated.
b) appoint an IFA to look at your pension ASAP in case you are one of the unlucky ones in unregulated rubbish (probably not on Novia but worth a check).

westv

Cold calling? Says it all really.

Dejavue

I have complained to the ombudsman and they are looking into this.
It would seem my pension money has been invested in property bonds (Greyfriars portfolio six) , and upon my own investigating these seem quite risky.

dunstonh

Greyfriars portfolio six was shut down for new money by the FCA in 2015. It contained a bunch of unregulated rubbish including car park bonds, cape verde property from the resort group (who were also known as cold calling scammers) and a bunch of illiquid mini-bonds. Pretty much the usual sort of rubbish seen when using cold calling scammers.

It isnt a case of it being "quite risky". It was a damned high risk. Off the scale for the mainstream.

The cold calling scam companies sell rubbish, usually unregulated investments that still pay a commission (usually an obscene amount that comes from the capital indirectly). Do it for a number of years until caught and then close down and dump their liabilities onto the FSCS once the FOS decisions start coming in.

I suspect you will next hear that the FOS are no longer able to handle your complaint and that you will have to refer it to the FSCS where you will enter a new 2-3 year queue for a decision.

Dejavue

Consumer Wealth are FCA regulated so does this mean I will not lose my money?

dunstonh

Consumer Wealth are FCA regulated so does this mean I will not lose my money?

They have applied to cancel their permissions and once they close the limited company, there will be no company any more to pay any redress.

You will then have to start again with the FSCS.

Dejavue

Disgusting, how are they allowed to get away with this

Alexland

Yup that's why it's always safer to stick to mainstream investments with trusted well known institutions and even then to spread your risk.