After over 8 years in operation, the Buy2letcars investment scheme has been closed to new investment by the FCA.
A “first supervisory notice” placed on Buy2letcars’ parent company, Raedex Consortium, prohibits the company from carrying out any regulated activities other than collecting payments on vehicle leases that were already in place.
Buy2letcars solicits investment from the public via social media, local news advertorials and radio ads. Their money was used to purchase a car to be leased out to a borrower. As the investment is unregulated, the FCA does not technically have the power to stop Buy2letcars taking in investment. However, FCA does have the power to stop Buy2letcars arranging new vehicle leases, and if Buy2letcars can’t arrange new vehicle leases, it can’t take in new investment as it can’t do anything with it.
In addition, Buy2letcars has been instructed “not to dispose of, withdraw, transfer, deal with or diminish the value of any assets it holds or receives on behalf of itself or another, otherwise than in the ordinary course of business”, effectively an asset freeze.
8 years in operation
I reviewed Buy2letcars in 2018, when the company had already been running for six years.
In its early years in 2012, Buy2letcars was advertising not just returns of 33% over three years but “a substantial six figure income”.
You keep your job and existing lifestyle and use our automated asset backed income generator system to a) realise 33% yield and b) develop a substantial six figure income.
The potential for “six figure income” appeared to rely on recommending others invest in Buy2letcars.
Once you are happy with our service and comfortable with the business you can recommend your peer groups and start earning a fortune. It is possible to replace or double your full time income within a short period of time.
buy2letcars will show you how to grow through the levels up to £250,000.
The “six figure income” claims were rowed back on shortly thereafter. The 2013 version of Buy2letcars’ website still contained details of “affiliate income” (i.e. earning commission by introducing investors to Buy2letcars) but no longer made claims about “six figure income”.
In my review of June 2018, I highlighted that Buy2letcars looked an awful lot like an unauthorised collective scheme. Investors did not just invest in a car but Buy2letcars itself, via a guarantee to return 85% of their money regardless of what happened to the car and the lease payments from it.
But until now the FCA was apparently happy for Buy2letcars to do its thang, so it’s not clear what has changed.
The FCA has stated that the reason for permissions being withdrawn was “concerns about its finances”. No further detail has been provided as yet.
In October 2018 I covered the Buy2letcars group’s 2017 accounts which showed significant losses and net liabilities. But that in itself doesn’t explain the FCA’s “concerns”, as the scheme has been posting net liabilities and losses since inception. In 2012 Raedex Consortium’s net liabilities were £172k and in 2013 £784k. Those net liabilities would only continue to mount.
In 2017 the net liabilities position improved from minus £6.8 million to minus £2.9 million, but only because the group managed to magic up £4.8 million of goodwill, representing “the expected future value of profits”. Where these profits were going to come from was unclear from the limited information disclosed in the accounts, given that the company continued to post losses.
The recently filed 2019 accounts showed more of the same – more losses and expanding net liabilities.
As at December 2019, Buy2letcars had taken in £34 million of investment, as far as we know from the “other creditors” line in its unaudited and limited accounts. How much it has taken in since is not yet known.
What happens now?
The FCA has emphasised to Buy2letcars’ existing borrowers that they should continue to make the lease payments on their vehicles.
So in theory, everything for existing Buy2letcars investors just carries on as before, and their interest will continue to be paid from the interest Buy2letcars receives from its borrowers.
But if the FCA has concerns about Buy2letcars’ finances, its a fair bet that investors will now share them, notwithstanding that Buy2letcars continues to claim on its website to be “protecting your assets
for peace of mind”.
Watch this space…
Literary Review
Buy2letcars owner Reginald Larry-Cole’s booky-wook, Compassionate Capitalism: How I Turned 150 Nos into 1 YES, had previously rocketed from 981,479th in October 2019 to the heady heights of 373,779th in January 2021.
In more bad news for Larry-Cole, the best-seller rating has since collapsed to #1,658,028. On the positive side, it retains its 5-star rating from 6 reviews.
Buy2letcars gave out “free” copies of Larry-Cole’s tome to new investors (if something that comes with a minimum investment of £7,000 can be accurately said to be free).
Hat tips to a pseudonymous contributor and Mark Taber who separately flagged the FCA’s shutdown.
Addendum 22.02.21
Buy2letcars has hit back at the FCA shutdown, stating:
We are surprised at the FCA’s interpretation of accepted accounting standards and principles,” said the directors of Raedex Consortium, which owns the business.
Although our company is well financed with a strong cashflow and bank balance, the FCA is putting 24 jobs at risk with this bizarre decision.
We would like to reassure our customers that we fully intend to challenge this and will be in touch with them directly this week.
By “customers” they presumably mean “investors” as the customers hiring the cars have no particular reason to be fussed.
Fundamentally this is not an issue of accounting standards but whether Buy2letcars can demonstrate that it can consistently earn enough from leasing out its cars to pay investors 11% per year, on top of all their other costs, while meeting its guarantees to make good any losses to investors from the individual vehicles.
Thank god for that, stop more victims being sucked in.
I wonder why the FCA have NOT stepped in on other similar schemes over the last few years ????.
Why this one now, why not NPD or Carlauren or any of the others ??? – Why is that ???
What has been so special about Reg Cole and his dodgy scheme to enable the FCA to step in , in such a manner???
Can you elaborate Brev as to why you think they have stepped in on this one and none of the others, at least in any meaningful way ??.
I see from the article published in The Times that the FCA issued a warning (to Raedex Consortium?) 2 years ago. I cannot find this warning on the FCA website and there is nothing in the public domain.
Can anyone put any more flesh on this? I expect Buy2Let cars etc. will be contacting their investors (including me) very shortly with their uptake on recent events.
I disagree with all of you, FCA is destroying a company that none of its investors put any formal complaints, the reasons have not been disclosed and I know because I’m an investor and receive a copies of the FCA email to buy 2 let cars.
In my personal experience, in the last 6 years of investing with buy 2 let cars, they have repaid me on time and never missed.
FCA have frozen buy 2 let accounts, meaning that all investors have not received their payments this month, this is disaster to all investots caused by FCA not but 2 let.
[Edited: Off-topic comments on unrelated companies removed. -Brev]
So you are all telling me that FCA actions are justified! really , freezing a company account out of tin air, causing repayment to default is the way forward.
Yes they have.
None of that alters the fact that Buy2letcars has consistently posted losses and net liabilities since its inception.
Every unregulated investment scheme in history made all its payments on time up until the moment that it didn’t.
From where I’m standing, making scheduled payments to investors isn’t prevented by the FCA’s asset freeze – that seems to come under “the ordinary course of business”.
How is the FCA “destroying the company”? All Buy2letcars has to do is repay existing investors using the income from the existing vehicle leases. Even if the asset freeze does prevent them from making payments to investors (which I’m dubious about), the leasing customers will still be paying their leases and all B2LC has to do is make up the interest when the FCA’s concerns are addressed and the freeze is lifted.
This is an article about Buy2letcars and I’m not going to comment on unrelated companies; however the one you mentioned isn’t an FCA-regulated company so the FCA would only be able to intervene by applying to the courts. As described in the article, Buy2letcars’ investment scheme is unregulated but the vehicle leasing side of the business is, so the FCA does have the power to stop it entering into new leasing arrangements.
Since the FCA is allowing the firm to continue collecting lease payments it means if you are right and the business is a going concern then that will fund all your interest payments and the return of your capital and you have nothing to worry about apart from a delay.
However if it is not viable business and only new investor money has propped it up then the FCA measure to prevent them siphoning off the remaining assets is essential for you to get even a portion of your capital back, as well as avoiding new investors being duped.
I think you have mistaken regular payments over the years as a sign of robust health, when the reality is even a Ponzi scheme (not that I am saying this is) pays out regularly right up to the point it fails.
I mentioned the following on this site a couple of days ago. “I see from the article published in The Times that the FCA issued a warning (to Raedex Consortium?) 2 years ago. I cannot find this warning on the FCA website and there is nothing in the public domain.”
Nobody has confirmed that any warning was issued 2 years ago. If it had been it is highly unlikely that we would be where we are now.
I too am an investor in B2L Cars. Repayments have been made on time every month and not a single other investor has made a complaint that I am aware of in over 8 years.
The company’s business model is unusual, if not unique. That does not make it a scam! The company explains in detail to investors how its business model works…and work it does.
The company provides lease vehicles to workers mainly in the public sector who have guaranteed earnings but for one reason or another cannot get lease cars through the mainstream lenders and, but for B2L and its leasing arm, would have no other option but to take out exhorbitant finance agreements of 30% APR upwards.
Funny how Banks and lenders are allowed to fleece customers with atrocious rates of interest but a company paying its investors between 9 and 11%…how dare they!
The fact is that B2L is a win-win for both investors and the customers of Wheels4sure availing themselves of a lease deal.
Now on to the FCA. Today I find my regular monthly payment has not gone into my account. This can only be because the FCA instructed the banks to freeze the companies accounts; something they admitted to in an email to the company, then contradicted in a later email by saying they didn’t. The fact is that the company’s bank accounts have been frozen and the Group are unable to conduct any business. A business that employs 24 staff.
The reason why the FCA did this. Because, in their own words
“…that there has been a degree of media and other interest in relation to the business model. These concerns are primarily in relation to the fact that the returns offered are quite considerable. The FCA has not received any complaints from investors to date.”
So, the FCA have admitted that it is media interest and probably online trolling that has triggered their action, not reasoned action based on established facts, not because of complaints from the many customers or investors, but just on rumour and ignorance.
Lets not forget this is the same FCA that is slated regularly on this site because of its incompetence.
We all know of the different and awful scams that are out there. But classing B2L cars as a scam or some kind of Ponzi Scheme from a regulator that has never bothered to investigate the company properly and engage fully with the Directors is a disgrace. But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.
What next? I know the Company and its Lawyers are working round the clock to resolve this unnecessary situation.
My next action is to make a formal complaint to the FCA and stress in no uncertain terms what damage their actions have done.
I urge all other B2l investors to do the same.
Russell, The Sunday Times is saying the FCA received a warning in 2019, as opposed to published a warning.
I have been investing in Buy2LetCars for four and a half years and every single monthly payment has been made by them on time.
I know the tin foil hat brigade who believe 100% of investments are “a scam” and thereby keep their money in “non-scam” bank accounts “earning” them a 0.01%-0.5% return are going to hate reading that, but it is a fact and there are dozens of investors on Trustpilot who all make the same point about Buy2LetCars faultless payment track-record.
The ONLY time in all those years I have not received my payment on the 25th of the month is today. That’s because the FCA have scandalously frozen Buy2LetCars bank accounts so they can’t make any payments, as everyone else is also saying. Any freeze from the FCA should not affect legitimate payments, but the FCA have screwed up, as always.
I am the first one to get riled up by unethical investments run by rogues. However, Buy2LetCars are a completely different kettle of fish to the low-lives who Brev writes about in this excellent blog. The guys there have always treated me with the highest level of respect and professionalism and for many years now have been running a legitimate, successful business.
Scott, Reg and the rest of the Buy2LetCars team are honest, honourable and above board in their dealings with me and others. All the five star reviews on Truspilot over years and years and years are surely worth something.
Buy2LetCars are a highly successful business. They have enabled hundreds of essential keyworkers to lease cars to travel to do their vital work. At the same time, they have made sure that hundreds of satisfied investors can earn a reliable monthly income over the last decade.
I’ve just checked and over 91% of cars in the UK are now bought on credit. Should only the banks be allowed to make money from people buying and leasing cars and then make monthly payments?
The FCA have misunderstood Buy2LetCars accounts and thereby taken this absurd action late on a Friday night. It is preposterous and I hope the scoundrels at the FCA are held to account for attacking a legitimate, bona fide business.
I do appreciate that the “everything is a scam” gang are so blinded in their hatred of all and sundry that they won’t relent in their paranoid attacks, but for everyone else I’d urge you to impartially reseach and study the facts about a business over the span of a decade.
If there are so many public sector workers who can be profitably loaned money at rates below 30% APR, why didn’t Buy2letcars take the money it raised from a few private individuals via an advert in the Sunday Times in 2012 (according to its own origin story), and quietly corner the market, keeping all the profits for itself, instead of touring the country offering 11% per year to random punters recruited via radio adverts and Facebook?
If the margin between a fair rate to offer to people with poor credit history who want to lease a car, and the 30% APR the mainstream market apparently offers them, is so wide that you can undercut the mainstream lenders and have enough money left over, after allowing for bad debts and all other costs, to offer external investors 11% per year, then Buy2letcars should have had a very profitable business within a very short space of time. They could have used the interest from the public sector workers beating down their door to expand the business instead of paying it out to investors and radio stations.
Nope. All it means is that the company was still paying interest, which as already covered means absolutely nothing. When you take in tens of millions worth of investors’ money, politeness is the least they can expect in return.
Not according to its own published accounts.
At this point we’re a bit beyond “Buy2letcars is so successful that its massive profits and reserves wrap around like an old-time arcade high score table, which makes it look like it’s posting consistent losses and net liabilities”.
If it is as successful as claimed then as soon as any restrictions are lifted – and we’ve still seen no public statement from either Buy2letcars or the FCA that the freeze affects its ability to pay interest to existing investors – it will pay its existing investors from the income derived from its successful business and all will be hunky-dory.
Laurence Coal – “Russell, The Sunday Times is saying the FCA received a warning in 2019, as opposed to published a warning.”
Thanks for clarifying this Laurence. The Directors state that the 1st contact from the FCA was on 19 January 2021 requesting documents. If the FCA received a warning 2 years earlier then what on earth have they been doing in that time? Who was the warning from? If it had been a credible source would they not have acted immediately?
Brev doesn’t believe the Bank accounts have been frozen, which is basically calling the Directors liars.
Here is an extract from the email sent by the FCA on Tuesday 23 February, and reported to investors by the Directors on 24th – “To note, however, the FCA has not sought to close the accounts, the FCA has requested that the accounts be frozen in order to preserve such assets as owned by Raedex and its group companies.”
It gets better; The FCA then sent a later email denying their earlier email.
Unsurprisingly the Banks have frozen the accounts!
The FCA actions would be laughable but it isn’t a joke; it isn’t funny. Their actions have caused real damage and the injustice of it is really that they seem to be a law to themselves and are not accountable to anybody else.
The Gloster Report says the answer to that question is “no”.
Basically it isn’t. This is a comments thread containing third-hand reports of what the Directors say the FCA said. I’m responding to your comments and your comments only. Not what the Directors said, which I don’t have access to.
I’m still not seeing the reason for the angst given that if Buy2letcars is as profitable as commenters are claiming, and the consistent losses and net liabilities it has posted are the work of “lazy accountants”, the FCA and the banks will in due course lift the freezes, Buy2letcars will resume paying the investors out of the income from borrowers (who have been told to continue their lease payments) which has been rolling up in its accounts, and all manner of things will be well.
The regulator poking its nose around is an inherent risk of investing in unregulated investment schemes, even in the UK.
Russell Holmes – ‘Thanks for clarifying this Laurence. The Directors state that the 1st contact from the FCA was on 19 January 2021 requesting documents. If the FCA received a warning 2 years earlier then what on earth have they been doing in that time? Who was the warning from? If it had been a credible source would they not have acted immediately?’
According to this Tweet (with a copy of the email sent) from the ‘horse’s mouth’ the FCA received a report from the Director of Financial Services Policy at Which? (who is now on the FCA’s Consumer Panel) back in 2019. He would appear to be credible:
https://twitter.com/DominicLindley/status/1363507534171111429?s=20
Questions investors should ask directors are:
1. How have the £25 million of accounting losses accumulated across the Group been funded?
2. Do all current investors have legal charges over the cars in which their funds have been invested?
3. How have defaults and shortfalls been funded in order that all investors to date have received the promised returns?
Investors should also read the FCA Notice rather than rely on second hand information about bank accounts being frozen:
https://www.fca.org.uk/news/statements/restrictions-placed-raedex-consortium-limited
The FCA register has been updated to state that from 15/3/2021 Raedex Consortium Limited is in administration:
https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000j3tCyAAI
No further information is provided on the current status of Buy 2 Let Cars Limited, but Raedex Consortium is the parent company of Buy 2 Let Cars Limited and the most recent published account of Buy 2 Let Cars state that the vast majority of the assets of Buy 2 Let Cars Limited are not in fact in cars, but are invested in loans to Raedex Consortium and/or another associated company.
The FCA have now published a further news article which additionally states that Buy 2 Let Cars Limited and Rent 2 Own Cars Limited have also been placed into administration by their directors.
https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/raedex-consortium-limited-and-buy-2-let-cars-ltd-enter-administration
Thanks for the heads up Larry.
Well this was a long time coming. Did investors think that every time that they invested in a car B2L would pop out and buy one for them with a customer just waiting to lease it. No cars need to be bought in volume from manufacturers to achieve fleet discount. So cars could be bought with no hirer and stand waiting for ages to be leased. Who do you think pays for your returns whilst your vehicle is off hire ? Did anyone ask how many cars were off hire in the compound when investing? The V5’s only show the registered keeper not proof of ownership. Are all investors in receipt of them. These are just a few practical questions to ponder.
An utterly pointless comment. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
Mr Holmes. You have tried to defend B2L throughout this thread. I feel for both you and your fellow investors but your comment stating that I “have no idea what I’m talking about” unfortunately is not correct. You are obviously an intelligent man so please lets not trade insults. I am merely trying to explain on the practical side of each unit ( or Car ) as they are purchased. Here is a cutting from a national newspaper
“On February 19, the Financial Conduct Authority banned Raedex from taking new business because it was insolvent. It declared that £7.5million that was included on the Buy 2 Let Accounts as goodwill should be wiped off.
The supervisory notice, just published by the regulator, has some alarming revelations. For instance, Buy 2 Let Cars claims to have 1,200 lease deals, but a random check of 102 of them found that 55 were second-hand vehicles and not new, as promised, 18 of the leases were apparently entered into significantly before the vehicle was on the road, and two of the cars could not be found at all on the DVLA database.”
It states on vehicles being off the road which was my original point. Many vehicles standing doing nothing but investors still having to be paid each month. Subprime lessees defaulting on payments and repossession of vehicles. I should think that not one investor could ever tell you how long their unit had been actually with a paying customer.
If you’d care to view the following https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW8CHpZ1mnA
It certainly doesn’t give the impression of a director in debt.
I wish you good luck and hope that you successfully retrieve your money
Ted V. Thank you for your response. Can I just clarify that your previous comments read as just plainly condescending to the investors. If you read those comments again i am sure you will agree that they were at best unhelpful.
The investors knew very well the vehicle procurement procedures by the company because the company went to great lengths to explain it, bearing no resemblance to your description of it. Hence my comment that you did not know what you were talking about.
Now, the revelations disclosed by the FCA are indeed revelations. These are things that the Investors could not possibly know about beforehand because the information was simply not available until the FCA directly intervened and scrutinised the accounts and other documents in detail and publicised its findings.
My defence of the company prior to these revelations was simply down to the fact that this company had been in existence for eight years and could not be classed as just another Bond scam. In all that time it had continued to trade and even ended up with 24 employees staffing the business. Not only were there Investors but also end customers who were driving around in leased vehicles.
It is clear now that the findings of the FCA leave some very uncomfortable questions for the Directors to answer. From what I have read by the FCA and what I have been told previously by the company I would be surprised if a Criminal Investigation isn’t considered. But this is just my current thoughts.
If you read the comments on Trust Pilot you will see some very sad cases of ordinary people who have committed their pension funds or life savings over a period of time in the belief that this was as secure an investment they could get that would give them a meaningful return on their investment, not the 0.20% or whatever from the banks, the same banks that charge 39.9% for going overdrawn on a current account. One couple recently disclosed that they have 37 cars!!. That is over £500k invested which is crazy. They did this because they had been with the company since the beginning and had always had their previous investments fulfilled.
Then there are the customers who are terrified of losing their cars. Two of those have posted comments on Trust Pilot: They are nurses who desperately need a car for work and would have to give up their jobs without their own transport.
These are all real people who have been damaged by recent events. This is why I get angry with the smart alec Trolls who post nasty “serves you right”…I saw it coming years ago why didn’t you ” blah blah blah garbage that you find whenever something like this happens.
Me…I can walk away now with a loss of £11k and get over it. A lot of other people won’t be that fortunate.
It is very early days yet and the appointed Insolvency practitioners are going to have a headache. The cars should be registered as individually owned by the investors. If this is indeed the case then how can they become part of the assets of the company in the final reckoning. In other words, if I own the vehicle how can it be be sold off without my authority, to repay the creditors?
I expect there will be some interesting developments in the coming weeks which should provide some entertainment for the morbid trolls out there.
My best wishes to all of you. I hope you never have the misfortune of being in this situation.
Problem is Russ that you say the investors knew the procurement process because the company told them. It’s blatantly obvious that they didn’t know the process because the company weren’t telling the truth. As the risk warnings on this site for every investment state – you need to do your own due diligence not rely on the information given by the company. It’s clear that this wasn’t the case or you’d have known what the true procurement process was. Just because a company has employees doesn’t mean it’s not a scam. It just means it’s been able to pull the wool over people’s eyes for a period of time. Even LCF had investors blaming the FCA for shutting them down and losing money when in reality it was the scam that did that.
“It’s blatantly obvious that they didn’t know the process because the company weren’t telling the truth.”
How do you know they weren’t telling the truth? If you are referring to the FCA notice of 19 Feb then arn’t you a little bit late to the party, because by that time the FCA had already conducted its investigation! Unless of course you had inside knowledge before this that enables you to state it was “blatantly obvious”?
“you need to do your own due diligence not rely on the information given by the company”.
Come on Jimbo, enlighten us all. Why would you not believe that the procurement process you had been told was true? What could possibly alert you to the idea that they might be lying? What Due diligence would you have done on the procurement process seeing as the majority of material held by the company would be classed as confidential?
We can all be smart arses after the event…can’t we??
Russell – There were things investors could check. Back in October 2019 Brev was pointing out.
https://bondreview.co.uk/2019/10/24/buy2letcars-increases-to-25-million-in-funds-under-management-company-hits-road-with-misleading-adverts/
* The company was using misleading adverts.
* The 100% payback record meant it must be operating an unauthorised collective investment scheme (i.e. pooling investors money).
* The December 2018 accounts showed “profit and loss account falling from minus £9.3m to minus £14.1m. Net assets decreased from an already negative £2.3 million to minus £9.5 million”.
The only people unregulated firms are allowed to target are sophisticated investors or those with high net worth. Sadly it seems many were neither, thinking like yourself long duration and consistent payments meant everything is OK and not knowing how to dig deeper.
Since the FCA consistently fails to enforce that rule I’m afraid unwary investors will continue to lose money. While Buy2Let investors have been aiming their wrath at the FCA for ending the charade, they should really be venting at them for not having putting a stop to it years ago.
“Why would you not believe that the procurement process you had been told was true?”
Because you’re handing money over to an unregulated company with no FSCS protection so you can’t rely on any statements as true. I’d certainly want more than a glossy brochure to assure me that my money wasn’t going to a ponzi. And strangely enough I was offered this investment in 2019, did due diligence and didn’t handover any money. It’s not being smart after the event when you’ve said it beforehand.
The two Directors have a lot to answer for. I spent TWO YEARS investigating Buy2LetCars before investing and the Directors sold me and other lenders a pack of lies. That’s why we find ourselves in this hellish position. Even a week before their FCA freeze, the Directors, Scott Martin and Reginald Larry-Cole told me all kinds of fibs, telling me the company was flying high, eventually get me to transfer my money to them.
We find ourselves suffering sleepless nights while our bruv Reg is living the life of riley, being chauffeur driven around in a Rolls Royce and Range Rover. These guys never ever fail to live it up themselves, such as Chris Madelin, the Director of Magna Global Group which has also been written about in this top notch blog for having gone pop owing tens of millions of pounds, who blew his lenders money on a Lamborghini and other riches.
I hope Brev doesn’t mind me posting a link to the Buy2LetCars creditors group, where other worried lenders can get some help? If so, the link is as follows:
https://buy2letcarsinvestorhelp.co.uk/
Thanks.