JEFF PRESTRIDGE: Musk will get to Mars before watchdogs catch crooks!

How depressing is it that fraudsters I wrote about over a month ago are still attacking people with scam offers for fixed income bonds.

It begs the question: what on earth are Action Fraud and the financial regulator doing to suppress financial fraud? Precious little, it seems.

The fixed-income bonds in question would be backed by energy giant Centrica and offered through investment bank Morgan Stanley. Yet the crooks behind the scam cloned the names of these two blue chip names to trick people into parting with their money.

To make their scam even more convincing, the fraudsters use the data of real Morgan Stanley employees to sell their wares. They obtained it from the list of authorized persons maintained by the city’s regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Two months ago it was the good name of William Thomas Daley (involved in client trading at Morgan Stanley) that they used. Now it’s Adrian Doyle’s records that they pulled from the Financial Services Registry.

One reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he had a lucky escape after agreeing to invest £40,000 – in two installments – with the fraudsters. He handed over £20,000, but when his fiancee’s (Lloyds) bank sounded alarm bells about an identical investment she made, he immediately contacted his own bank who managed to get his money back (well done Barclays!).

The fake Adrian Doyle – presumably unaware that his intended victim had now recovered his original £20,000 – then tried to persuade the reader to part with his second tranche of money. The reader realized he was dealing with a fraudster and tied Mr. Doyle on a string hoping to collect enough evidence for Action Fraud to live up to its name and take action.

Desperate to steal his money, Mr. Doyle offered Centrica bonds paying 12 percent interest instead of seven percent the first time. Despite MoS reader Action Fraud providing full details of his experience, the crooks are still at large.

In defense of the FCA, it has included the fraudsters’ information in its warning list of unauthorized firms – fca.org.uk/consumers/warning-list-unauthorized-firms. In my opinion, Elon Musk’s Starship rocket will get people to Mars well before Action Fraud does anything to stop the fraudsters who cloned the good names of Morgan Stanley and Centrica to commit crime.

So if you get an email that ends with @ms-privatewealth.com offering you attractive Centrica bonds, send it to me – then delete it. The best action you can take.

It’s speed dating for investors… and I love it

I feel more loved as an investor – and so does time. I haven’t heard nonsense for years from those who manage the funds and investment funds that are the foundation of my long term Isa and retirement, they all want to woo me now.

It’s the equivalent of investment speed dating — and I’m ready for it. I want the managers who look after my hard-won investments to show that they care about me as a customer, even if I lose paper under their direction. First, as I previously reported, the powerful fund manager BlackRock sent me a note earlier this month inviting me to the annual general meeting of his World Mining investment fund, of which I am a shareholder.

The meeting went very well and I came out better informed about the confidence – and the outlook. Hats off to BlackRock.

Now Andrew Impey, chairman of investment fund JP Morgan UK Smaller Companies, is calling the shots and has signaled me – as he has with all shareholders. While this trust’s AGM isn’t until December, the fund just released its semi-annual report through the end of January of this year — and Impey has begged me to devour it online. I did.

The report isn’t exactly easy to read, as it confirms year-over-year shareholder losses of more than 15 percent. Yet Impey and fund managers Georgina Brittain and Katen Patel are nothing but optimists. They insist the future for shareholders could look brighter if the current undervaluation of most smaller UK companies is appreciated by the wider market at some point in the near future, triggering a reassessment. I have now signed up for regular updates on the progress of the trust, including insights, performance analysis and promised video interviews with the two managers. It will all keep me busy.

Of course, long-term profit is what most investors want. But when it comes down to it, I’ll be much more forgiving to the managers if they commit instead of just taking fees from me.

The Safe Hands saga gets worse

While it’s good that we now have a regulated market for funeral plans, it’s no comfort to the 46,000 people who bought plans from Safe Hands, based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

Safe Hands went into administration in March last year – months before the Financial Conduct Authority took over regulation of the funeral industry. At the same time, the client was protected against corporate failure through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

As a result, clients who purchased a Safe Hands plan with the understanding that it would ultimately cover the cost of their funeral have been well and truly hung out to dry.

The latest update from the administrators overseeing the Safe Hands financial wreckage makes for alarming reading.

The trust fund into which customer payments were deposited – and segregated – is in a precarious state. Although it holds assets valued between £8 million and £10.9 million, the expected cost of meeting all the funerals paid for by customers is £70.6 million.

In other words, customers are likely to get back between 11 and 15 pence of every pound they paid to Safe Hands at some point.

Put another way, between 85 pence and 89 pence of every pound of their good money has gone up in smoke – and with it the funeral they were promised.

Certainly, those responsible for putting Safe Hands in financial trouble – through a mix of incompetence, greed and nefarious activities – must be held accountable for their actions at some point.

Building funds pay peanuts in interest

It’s not just banks that treat depositors with contempt by paying them the equivalent of peanuts in interest. Occasionally, building associations don’t cover themselves with glory either.

An old reader from Coventry, who knows building societies quite well, has been in touch and spat feathers about the behavior of the Hinckley and Rugby.

It recently wrote to the depositors of its Regular Saver with 30 days’ notice to inform them that as of next Thursday it is cutting (yes LOWERING) the interest it pays from 4.75 to 4.25 percent.

Savers – who are siphoning between £10 and £500 into the account every month – have been told that if they’re not happy with the rate cut they can close their account before June 3 without giving notice or incurring any loss of money. have to suffer. interest.

The reader is baffled by the fact that H&R does not explain the rate cut, especially at a time when interest rates only go one way – and that is up.

Treat customers fairly? No. A request to hear H&R’s side of the story fell on deaf ears.