TONY HETHERINGTON: Back in business… golden boss with a VERY dark past

Tony Hetherington is the Financial Mail on Sunday’s top researcher, taking on readers’ corners, uncovering the truth that lies behind closed doors and delivering victories for those left out of pocket. Below you can read how you can contact him.

WE’RE WATCHING YOU

What could be worse than discovering that the trusted top salesman at a multi-million pound gold investment company is using an alias and has a dodgy past? Well, how about the fact that the owner of the same company also uses an alias and has a dodgy past!

Two weeks ago I revealed that salesman Clive Lindsay, of Solomon Global Limited, is actually Clive Mongelard, whose reputation as an investment scammer goes back more than a decade. The Financial Conduct Authority has banned him from working for any supervised company.

Two days after The Mail on Sunday’s report was published, Paul Williams, managing director of Solomon Global, wrote: ‘Thank you for bringing the issues surrounding Clive Lindsay to our attention through your article.

‘We take these matters seriously and as a result we have terminated Clive’s employment.’ So far, so good. But a closer look at Solomon Global, which sells gold coins as an investment and had a turnover of almost £14 million last year, initially found surprisingly little about the background of its shadowy owner, Scott Wilson.

Company records show he acquired a more than 50 percent stake in the company last January, and Solomon Global told Companies House that while he was not a director himself, he had the power to appoint or remove directors to run the company to run for him. Since then, Wilson has increased his stake to 75 percent or more.

He describes himself as a ‘business consultant specialized in marketing and sales’, but his LinkedIn page contains no photo and only mentions a period as an independent salesman at an art gallery.

From 2014 to 2022, he vaguely claims to have worked in the financial services industry, but does not mention any employers, let alone directorships or controlling stakes.

And this isn’t surprising, as I can now reveal that Scott Wilson is actually Scott Assemakis.

An eleven-year ban on acting as director of any company under his real name was recently lifted.

The restriction came in 2013 after he played a leading role in what the Insolvency Service described as a ‘£7 million land bank scam’.

Using a variety of company names, including Ultraclass, Burnhill Land Investments and The Property Partnership, Assemakis and his crew sold parcels of overpriced land with false claims about its development potential.

One investor paid £10,000 for a strip of land near Towcester in Northamptonshire, only to discover that the council had already banned building even a fence on it, and the real value was around £75.

Insolvency Service investigators discovered that Assemakis had made more than £1.3 million from the scam, while millions more had disappeared without a trace.

When the ban came into effect in 2013, Assemakis was forced to resign as director of another of his investment companies, European Fine Wines Limited.

It marketed wines at well above the prices charged by legitimate wine merchants and went bankrupt shortly after closing. Creditors demanded £3.4 million.

They received just 1.4p for every pound they owed. Another one-time director at European Fine Wines was Emrah Ceyhan. And until last January, when he handed over the helm to Scott Assemakis, he was the behind-the-scenes boss of Solomon Global.

Both Williams and Assemakis were invited to comment, but neither did.

However, with the owner of Solomon Global and its leading salesperson both feeling the need to use aliases due to past transgressions – causing major losses to investors – it is not surprising that the Advertising Standards Authority has banned the company’s recent promotion for making of misleading claims. .

It might be foolish to expect anything less.

Bailiffs are chasing me for a mistake that wasn’t mine

CS writes: I am being pursued by Direct Collection Bailiffs Ltd over alleged unpaid parking charges imposed by Britannia Parking, but this is entirely due to an error made by the parking company itself.

Tony Hetherington replies: You told me that you and your wife paid for parking at Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast, in a car park run by the local authority. The cafe there was full, though, so you drove to the nearby North Landing parking lot, assuming it was also run by the city. Later that day you left the parking lot, but drove back to let your disabled wife use the public restrooms there before returning home.

Duration: The Flamborough Head car park on the Yorkshire coast is managed by the local authority

You realized your mistake when Britannia Parking, the company behind the North Landing parking garage, contacted you. But to your horror, you received two penalty notices (PCNs), and not one. Each copy cost £100, reduced to £60 if you paid promptly and without objection. You paid the first £60 PCN but have appealed the second.

This is where things went seriously wrong because Britannia included your appeal with the first PCN you paid. Confusingly, the second fine was reduced to £20, which you also paid. Worse still, it passed the first PCN on to debt collectors and the amount shot up to £170.

I have contacted both Britannia and its collection agencies. The latter quickly informed me that Britannia had asked them to cease further action. Britannia itself has admitted that it made an ‘administrative error’ with your appeal. It was explained that it considered each individual entrance to the car park as a new visit, with a new rate, even though the original rate covered both costs.

Britannia has withdrawn all claims against you but refuses to comment or explain, saying it ‘cannot comment on individual cases’, despite having your signed authority to discuss its errors with me.

If you believe you have been a victim of financial misconduct, please write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Due to the large number of questions, personal answers cannot be given. Please only send copies of original documents, which unfortunately cannot be returned.