Thoughts on Finance, Current Affairs and General Consumer Ripoffs - Damn Lies and Statistics

Aston Darby are offering Airport Parking spaces at Manchester airport. They claim to guarantee returns of 22% but this is not an FSCS protected investment so the guarantee depends on them deciding to honour it. If they go bust in 2 years time you could well have lost all of your money. There is nothing that backs up the guarantees. The company Aston Darby was only setup in 2017 and has yet to file accounts so you are reliant on a very new company.  There is nothing to stop them paying you back your own money as the guaranteed income which may then stop after 2 years. Aston Darby Airport Parking Manchester - is it a scam? These types of unregulated investments might be suitable for an investor who has millions of other assets but for the average consumer they are a very risky option where you could lose all of your investment as those who have put their hard earned money into similar schemes have discovered to their cost. Remember - this is a high risk investment and on...

A company called London Capital and Finance are heavily advertising on various savings websites for what they call a savings bond with an interest rate of 8% and others have mistakenly called a London Capital Finance ISA. As the websites hosting the adverts are promoting savings accounts it's important to be clear - the London Capital and Finance bond is not a savings account or a cash ISA and involves risk to your money. You could lose all the money you invest as it is not FSCS protected. London Capital Finance ISA Savings Bond reviews The product offered by LCF appears to be genuine and not a scam but by promoting their product via savings websites they are misleading savers that this is a savings account and not a product that puts their money at risk. Is the London Capital Finance Bond ISA Interest Fixed or Guaranteed? The London Capital Finance bond or ISA gives the impression that the interest rate is fixed which it will be if the companies they lend the m...

Can you Earn Over 4% Interest on £15000 risk free? After repeatedly trying to help readers of This is Money to get decent rates on their savings and repeatedly being told I'm lying that I can earn decent interest on £15000, I decided to spell out exactly how it can be done. You do need to open accounts but to get 10x the rate available on a cash ISA seems worthwhile to me. You can even use variations to suit the amount of money you have and even drop the number of accounts or regular savers if you want less hassle. There are a number of current accounts paying interest, some vastly higher than any savings account. As of today, Tesco Bank pay 3% on £6000, TSB pay 3% on £3000 and Nationwide pay 3% or 5% depending on the account but £2500 in each account. For a couple you can do even better and get £7500 at 5% with Nationwide for 1 year. Regular saver accounts There are some savings accounts where you commit to paying a regular amount each month and the bank will pay a high rat...

After repeatedly seeing questions raised on Money Saving Expert about the London Capital & Finance bonds that purport to be low risk savings bond and is advertised on sites alongside cash accounts that are fully FSCS protected I reported these to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Financial Conduct Authority FCA. The advert details make no mention of the fact these are completely unregulated and you could lose ALL your money. The full asset backed security is nonsense and misleading investors into thinking there is protection to their savings when they could lose their entire investment. I have posted risk warnings about London Capital & Finance bonds before but need to report them too so hopefully people won't get sucked in and lose money they can't afford too. It's criminal that a company is allowed to promote their products in such a way that they are made to appear low risk when a regulated product could not do so. On regulated investments ...

You may have seen adverts for London Capital & Finance offering excessively high rates for what are claimed to be savings accounts. The motto "if it seems too good to be true it probably is" has never been more appropriate. London Capital & Finance may not be a scam but it certainly isn't offering a savings account. It's not FSCS protected and you could lose ALL your money. The advert claims London Capital Finance is a savings account, it isn't! It's a loan to a company that may not pay it back. Read closely and it says your capital is at risk

On almost a daily basis there are posts on MSE about an 8% bond where you could lose 100% of your money yet posters are ignoring the risk warnings and assuming it is a savings account. But back in 1998 you could get 8% on instant access account with Egg!

I write a number of blogs and it was hard to decide where this one should appear as it's not really on the theme of any of them. I've been interested in history for some time and fascinated by how our civilisation developed so some recent discoveries have been a real eye opener about our past. As a result it seemed a good idea to put some details together for my own benefit as much as anyone else to try to clarify things that are facts, scientific theories and pure speculation to try to put some order to them. I'll be adding to this over time so check back for any updates and feel free to comment if there are things you disagree with or I've missed out. Is there any Evidence for Ancient Advanced Civilisations? Civilisations as we understand them are believed by mainstream archaeologists to have begun around 5000BC. However, is it possible that advanced civilisations existed before this time and we have yet to find any evidence or understand the evidence we already ha...