Investment Bonds paying 3.924% or 5.4%

wildfirejc

Yes, after speaking to FSCS and asking them to check the number which is:- Aberdeen Asset Managers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Firm Reference Number FCA: 121891.
Registered in England company No. SC108419.
Registered office: 10 Queen’s Terrace, Aberdeen AB10 1XL, Scotland, UNITED KINGDOM.

Cloning - I understand. I've seen it happen. But there is more than one of these and here is another one I mentioned.
Oh, can't insert link as I am new.
Go to fixedreturninvestment dot com


Out of curiousity, I completed the request for more info and got a call from a guy who claimed he was from Klenwort Hambros Investment Dept.
As I was speaking to him, I checked up on Kleinwort Hambros and found that the number he was calling from wasn't the same number as the one on the Website. When asked, he said that number was the switchboard number and he was calling from the Investment dept. He said he will email me with details of the bond and ring me in a few days to chat again.
Telling me how big Klenwort Hambros is and how they only deal with rich people (of which I am not one), I was left wondering why they would bother to personally ring a nobody like me.

Anyway, I am cautious and aware that sometimes greed can make people be much less cautious....so I thought I would put this on the forum and see how many other people have come across this and hear about your experience. So far, I am impressed with what I am reading.
You learn something new everyday. Thanks once again.

Linton

dunstonh wrote: »

......
I am hearing alarm bells as the information is worded badly. It doesn't sound like it was written by someone in financial services. it gives incorrect information which is totally wrong and could be spoofing/cloaning by using brand names with a real corporate bond but your money may not go to that., i.e. you hand the money over thinking you have a BT corporate bond but the money has gone off to third party who you can never trace.

Yes it is odd. The wording is rough/misleading/incorrect. But if you were a scammer surely you would come up with something a little more enticing than a relatively low interest BT corporate bond.

wildfirejc

Maybe the scammers are getting smarter - they know that we know if the interest rate is too high, then it is probably too good to be true - so they put it as slightly higher than 2% but still overall more than double what cautious investors would be willing to risk.

wildfirejc

Ah - OK, I have got to the bottom of this. It is a scam. I phoned up Kleinwort Hambros and asked to speak to Adam Gray. I was put through to the Compliance Dept and the man I spoke to had no idea his name was being used by the scammers. But he will get to the bottom of it.
So there you have it, another scam exposed. Phew.

jimjames

Linton wrote: »

So the offer could be genuine. The bond could be considered low risk (if you think BT is unlikely to go bust) but not zero risk. Clearly the bond isnt covered by FSCS, but the seller could be.

If you buy the BT bond via the stock market then yes it's low risk. Buy it via some unregulated third party then I suggest you're likely to lose all your money

jimjames

A similar use has been reported on bondreview

https://bondreview.co.uk/2019/02/27/we-review-strategic-active-trading-funds-plc-clone-firm-scam/

Malthusian

jimjames wrote: »

If you buy the BT bond via the stock market then yes it's low risk.

No it isn't. By itself it's an extra high risk investment with potential for 100% loss if BT goes bust, like any individual security. Or a smaller permanent loss if the price of the bond falls and never recovers by the time you want to sell it.

You can say "Oh but that won't happen" but Moody's, for one, would disagree with you - the bonds are rated two notches above junk (Baa2). A lot can happen to a telecoms firm in 23 years.

Linton wrote: »

Yes it is odd. The wording is rough/misleading/incorrect. But if you were a scammer surely you would come up with something a little more enticing than a relatively low interest BT corporate bond.

Why? It worked. It was working on the OP until he came here. It will have worked on plenty of people that didn't think to ask some Internet forum for a second opinion.

Scams cover the full range of the market. Some people will fall for a scam promising returns of 200% per year. Some will think that's too good to be true and instead fall for a scam promising returns of 5% per year. Some won't do any Googling. Some will do a bit of Googling, see that the BT bond exists, and happily hand over their money thinking that they've "done their research".

There would be no point in all scammers offering the same thing and chasing the same marks.

londoninvestor

wildfirejc wrote: »

Ah - OK, I have got to the bottom of this. It is a scam. I phoned up Kleinwort Hambros and asked to speak to Adam Gray. I was put through to the Compliance Dept and the man I spoke to had no idea his name was being used by the scammers. But he will get to the bottom of it.
So there you have it, another scam exposed. Phew.

Sounds similar to this "Volkswagen / Charterhouse" one from a little while ago:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5951436/charterhouse-vw

Thanks for posting back and confirming.

wildfirejc

Oh, I found the first website where this all started - it's called
btaberdeenbond dot com

I have reported this to Aberdeen Standard. Unfortunately the receptionist doesn't know who I should speak to in their organisation. Whereas Kleinwort Hambros was very keen to get to the bottom of this and I got an email from someone who is the Group Head of Operational Risk.
I also went to whois.com to check where the websites were hosted. The one of Aberdeen has a Russian email. So now we know!

ffacoffipawb

wildfirejc wrote: »

Oh, I found the first website where this all started - it's called
btaberdeenbond dot com

I have reported this to Aberdeen Standard. Unfortunately the receptionist doesn't know who I should speak to in their organisation. Whereas Kleinwort Hambros was very keen to get to the bottom of this and I got an email from someone who is the Group Head of Operational Risk.
I also went to whois.com to check where the websites were hosted. The one of Aberdeen has a Russian email. So now we know!

Recently set up scam site, registered in Russia (.ru domain)

Domain name: BTABERDEENBOND.COM
Domain idn name: BTABERDEENBOND.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Registry Domain ID:
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.reg.com
Registrar URL: https://www.reg.com/
Registrar URL: https://www.reg.ru/
Registrar URL: https://www.reg.ua/
Updated Date: 2019-02-21
Creation Date: 2019-02-21T11:57:47Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-02-21
Registrar: Registrar of domain names REG.RU LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 1606
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: email@reg.ru
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +7.4955801111
Name Server: ns1.hosting.reg.ru
Name Server: ns2.hosting.reg.ru
DNSSEC: Unsigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2019.03.06T20:51:03Z <<<