Money Lost in Investment Fund

SnowyywonS

My mother-in-law died recently and we have been going through her paperwork and have come across statements of fairly sizable investments in a company called WPCF Investments 101 Ltd which, it appears, were registered in the British Virgin Islands. Online searches for the company tell us that it was dissolved in 2020 which is probably why the last statement that we have is dated 31/10/2019. A search for WPCF Investments 101 UK Ltd comes up as a dormant company, although Clifford Donald Wing is mentioned as a Director in both cases and a search for him reveals that he appears to have been a Secretary or Director at 1,670 Companies!

The paperwork that we have is sketchy and we have tried the few email addresses and phone numbers that we have found with no answers to anything. Online searches have also revealed nothing new.

Would anyone please have any suggestions as to where we can look to try and find out where this money has gone and if there is any chance of recovering it please?

TripleH

How was the money invested, I assume shares in the company?

How was the company dissolved?

Is it shown as liquidated / in administration at all?

Keep_pedalling

The company was dormant from Nov 2011 with no assets so I doubt whether they were sending out the statements, and suspect they were middlemen selling off shore bonds or similar.

Chances are this money are gone, but can you tell us what the last statement said as far as any assets held in her name.

SnowyywonS

Keep_pedalling said:

The company was dormant from Nov 2011 with no assets so I doubt whether they were sending out the statements, and suspect they were middlemen selling off shore bonds or similar.

Chances are this money are gone, but can you tell us what the last statement said as far as any assets held in her name.

There are two very basic statements. The first one states an Investment Date of 26/10/2012. It states an investment of £10,000, Yields Retained £4,035, Yields paid to date £0, Total Value of Investment @ Statement Date £14,035. The second one is similar, albeit with almost twice as much invested.

SnowyywonS

TripleH said:

How was the money invested, I assume shares in the company?

How was the company dissolved?

Is it shown as liquidated / in administration at all?

All of the information we have is very sketchy other than what I've already put on here and in my reply to keep_pedalling's post.

TripleH

I assume no other company names were included and it just said WPCF Investments bonds (or similar on the statements)?

SnowyywonS

TripleH said:

I assume no other company names were included and it just said WPCF Investments bonds (or similar on the statements)?

It doesn't even say that. Everything included is exactly as I've written it above. It's such a basic bit of paperwork that it flagged up worries with me immediately when I saw it. Even the fact that the client investment number was just simply 65b is concerning.

GDB2222

I'm afraid that this says it all, really:

Danny Cox, independent financial adviser at Hargreaves Lansdown, replies: I nearly fell off my chair when I saw this. This is terrible, terrible advice. Do not do this.

The vast majority of investors should not invest in anything which is not regulated by the UK authorities and covered by UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme – and especially not an inexperienced investor.

I am not familiar with the company in question or the compensation scheme in the British Virgin Islands, but there has to be a question as to why a UK resident is being recommended a product based in such a remote jurisdiction, normally associated with sophisticated investors and hedge funds.

Unfortunately savings rates in the UK are poor and these can be marginally improved using fixed-rate bonds.

In my view, savers should always stick to banks or building societies covered by the FSCS and limit their savings to £85,000 per person per institution.

For greater returns than available on the high street savers would need to risk some of their capital and consider alternatives such as the stock market.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-2387694/Is-safe-invest-30k-offshore-bond.html

Keep_pedalling

Looking closely at the company documents it would appear they never actively traded, the first set of accounts filed were as a dormant company before the OPs MIL made these ‘investments’. Looks like an outright scam and I suspect the scammers were using the name of a dormant company to give a bit a look of autanticity.