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

 Northern Powerhouse Developments was previously  known as MBI Property Investments. They offer very high risk hotel room investments to high net worth individuals - these are not suitable investments for someone to put their life savings into

Basset and Gold are offering a bewildering array of different rate bonds but the common factor on all of them is that your money is at risk and you could lose ALL your money with them. These are some really important points about the Basset Gold 9% bonds Basset & Gold that you are buying a 5 year bond with was only registered with companies house on 24th July 2017. So it would seem brave in the extreme to put money into a 5 year bond with a company that didn’t exist 11 months ago. How can you guarantee that the company will be there to repay your money in 5 years time when they weren't in existence a year ago? It's hardly a stable long term company! It seems a bit strange that B&G chose to withdraw its directors' register information from the public register in May this year. May be legitimate but it seems very strange. If you think that these sort of companies are safe and FSCS protected - think again. There are other similar companies that have gone bust...

One of the Basset Gold products is called a Cash Bond and claimed to be "A great savings rate with easy access to your cash" yet your capital is still at risk and there is zero mention in the website details that it's not FSCS protected and you could lose your money. Basset Gold 3% Cash Bond - Is it Genuine or Scam? It's very worrying that the website claims: No Fees  – 100% of principal returned at term Yet this is an investment product that could mean you lose all or part of your money. There is no guarantee that you will get all your money back or even get all the interest. Read the risk warning very carefully! Risk Warning Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investment through the Basset & Gold Fixed Income Bonds involves lending to companies or individuals and therefore your capital is at risk and interest payments are not guaranteed if the borrower defaults. Investors should note that it could take the time it takes to liq...

Yet another scam using the photos of well known personalities to promote their ripoff schemes, this time it's Dragon's Den. Previously it has been Martin Lewis who has taken Facebook to court to get them to stop taking adverts for scams using his name and photo. Before you sign up to schemes that you believe are legitimate purely because you see a famous face attached to it do some basic checks. The chances are that the person shown has zero involvement and no knowledge of the scam

Some of the latest scams to do the rounds are based on Facebook where pages are setup purporting to be major brands that are giving away big prizes in exchange for liking or sharing a page. Invariably these are scams and nothing to do with the brand in question. Facebook TUI Scam Holiday Competition  The latest one seen this weekend is for TUI Holidays claiming they're giving away free holidays to Morocco. To be clear this is nothing to do with the real TUI holidays and they have no involvement. Facebook TUI Scam Holiday Competition Read the page and it's clear that it's fake, it's described as "friends of TUI" and only has the one post on the page with no contact info. Real TUI would have full information about the company. The only purpose of these types of page/competition is to harvest your data and to sell it on. The numbers signing up are scary. From first view on Sunday morning when the page had 5k likes by Sunday evening the page had ov...

Basset and Gold are now promoting a 3.14% Easy Access Cash Bond. However despite the use of the word BOND which is commonly associated with cash savings accounts at a bank this is an investment where you could lose your money and not receive interest either. The reviews on the Basset Gold website are all very positive - but they don't highlight any of the risks. Just because something has paid out in the past doesn't mean that it will in the future. Past performance genuinely is not a sign of future performance. If you are tempted by the rates that are higher than some savings accounts then make sure you are fully aware of the risk that you may not get your money back. Personally I prefer to use bank accounts that pay up to 5% interest and are guaranteed as well as FSCS protected. The risk warning is on the Basset & Gold website but not given as much prominence on their Facebook adverts and is generally downplayed by saying that they've paid out up to now. Many...

There are lots of complaints about Stephen Long of Universal Wealth Preservation Trust  from people who are unable to contact him and access their money. Universal Wealth aren't the only ones claiming there is a magic solution to care fees. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4935458 Some more info. It appears that the Universal website is registered to a different company than the one that appears listed on the site itself. Maybe a few of the other names listed could give some more details about the company https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05929392/persons-with-significant-control UNIVERSAL ASSET PROTECTION LTD Company number 05929392 https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06825924/persons-with-significant-control UNIVERSAL TAX SOLUTIONS LIMITED Company number 06825924 Mrs Melanie Ann Long had Ownership of shares Interestingly the owner of that site claims to be an individual called Inheritance Preservation, I've never heard of that bein...

A website called Top ISA rates is yet again misleading people with their adverts on Facebook and Google. Facebook don't seem to care that these adverts are giving the impression of being bank accounts when they are nothing of the sort. Have a look at the image below. There are lots of people outside different banks including NatWest which is still obvious despite attempted blurring of the name. 8% ISAs - Genuine or Fake Savings Accounts? If anyone thinks they can get a bank cash ISA paying 8% then they will be sadly mistaken and it's very misleading to use adverts such as this to promote Innovative Finance ISAs that mean you could lose your money and not get income and give the appearance of being a cash ISA. 99% of people who hear the word ISA will believe it means CASH ISA so this is almost certainly designed to entice people to sign up to something they aren't expecting. If you are looking for a genuine ISA paying 8% then your capital will be at risk - yo...