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

How to get money back from Cauta Capital Bonds? I wrote about Cauta Capital and the risks of investing money with them back in 2019.  Sadly some of the investors in Cauta Capital are now finding out the true risks to their bond capital as repayment dates have been missed and they've apparently had erratic interest payments along the way too. Cauta were offering unrealistic interest rates of 11% on their bonds and had no mention on the adverts of the risks involved in lending money to a small startup company in the way of unregulated bonds. As with Fluid ISA Bonds investing money in an unregulated company gives you very little in the way of options to recover your money if the company go bust or stop answering your calls or emails. The money with Cauta Capital is not protected by FSCS or FCA regulated so if the company fails to pay then investors would only be able to take legal action themselves to force a return of their capital. If the company has no assets then this would be fu...

 There have been a number of investors in Fluid ISA Bond reporting that payments have not been received when expected and that they have been unable to contact the company by phone or email.  It also appears that the Fluid ISA Bond website is down supposedly for maintenance but the main Fluid website refers investors to visit the dedicated ISA bond website which is also down for maintenance and has been for some weeks. Unfortunately unregulated mini bonds such as the Fluid ISA have a risk of 100% capital loss as you are lending money to a small company. There is no indication that investors will lose all their money in Fluid ISA but the longer that they're unable to make contact with the company the more worrying it will be. Have you invested in Fluid ISA and are waiting for money to be repaid? Add a comment below so you can see if other investors are in the same position. It is unusual for a company to take a website down for maintenance over extended periods when usually it...

In a nutshell, one of the lawyers who represent many of the Private Parking Companies is in a bit of bother with the Solicitors Regulatory Authority with an impending prosecution.This particular company (Gladstones Solicitors) are a real thorn on the side for many people contesting outrageous parking fines and and try taking people to court. People affected by Gladstones are taking great delight in highlighting the troubles that Gladstones are now. What follows is the gist of the incestuous links within the alleged parking scam being operated and making many solicitors and parking companies lots of money (many ex-clampers here) - not sure about the human interest angle - but as regards the prosecution of Gladstones Solicitors by the SDT (full details on the link given) there's £35k given to charity because they couldn't identify the people who had paid them - very unlikely story> The Solicitors Regulation Authority published its’ decision made on 05/06/2021 to Prosecute Glad...

It's already been documented elsewhere that Together Energy is controlled jointly by one of its' shareholders (Paul Scott Richards) and Warrington Borough Council (they seemed to have lent quite a bit of cash to the company to keep them going). This news release by OFGEM may be of interest: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/ofgem-orders-seven-suppliers-pay-ps179m-unpaid-renewables-obligations-payments Together Energy have failed to pay their Renewable Obligations that amount to £12.4 million. Out of a total of £17.7 million owed by 7 companies, £12.4m of this is owed by one company, Together Energy which doesn't look good news. £12.4M owing!!!!!!!! - Together Energy may be the next to fail, unless they get bailed out again by Warrington Borough Council of course. If I was a resident of Warrington, I'd really be more than a little concerned to find that my council tax and business rates were being used to keep afloat an energy company in Scotland. Where's the gov...

The government have finally revealed the details of the compensation scheme for investors in the failed mini bond company London Capital and Finance. The company was shown to be a Ponzi scheme by the administrators as new investor money was being used to pay interest to existing investors and loans were being made to companies linked to the directors of the company. The announcement by the government has clarified many of the questions raised after the scheme was announced and gives the information to allow investors to decide if they want to accept the compensation offer or wait for the administrators to recover funds from the few remaining solvent investments made by LCF. The details confirm that by accepting the compensation offer investors will give up all rights to any recovery from the administrators and that the FSCS will receive any money that is recovered on their behalf. This is not surprising as it recoups some of the cost of the compensation scheme. It also explains that in...

 The Bill to pay compensation up to 80% of investment value for London Capital & Finance investors has now passed all the stages in the House of Commons and the Lords and received Royal Asset so can now be implemented by the government. As previous outlined the compensation will cover up to 80% of the maximum FSCS cover of £85,000 so anyone who invested that amount will receive a total of £68,000. This total will include any interest and dividend already paid by the administrators. Anyone who invested over the FSCS limit will also be capped at £68,000 compensation which could result in major losses for some investors. However it would appear the government has decided it would be unfair to compensate for losses above that level when the FSCS limit has been widely known and this investment was not covered by FSCS anyway as an unregulated product. The Bill states that compensation will be paid within six months of it being passed so investors should receive their money by the end...

 It might start to seem like a bit of a worn record but my previous blog posts about inflation seem to be being backed up once more.  Boris Johnson has claimed the current problems are all part of his plan to move to a high wage, high skill economy. The problem with this is that with wages going up and an insufficient supply of labour constrained along with  there is a very high likelihood of price rises feeding into inflation.  If the number of workers is lower than the number of employees that the country needs then increasing wages will just move the problem from one sector to another such as refuse lorry drivers moving to drive supermarket HGVs. Sectors with lower wages such as public sector will then lose out or have to ramp up wages to compete causing a spiral of wage growth but no extra people. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58811271 As a small example if you have 11 jobs in your economy and only 10 workers then as an employer you can increase wages which...