With a few exceptions, investors in collapsed unregulated investment schemes generally find sympathy in short supply.
The media will occasionally print the hard-luck story of a someone who invested their entire pension lump sum, or an injury compensation payment, but the news cycle usually moves swiftly on.
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Reader Sally Jones has drawn my attention to some eye-opening posts over the past year from collapsed unregulated car park investment scheme Park First's Russian Instagram account.
All quotes below have been machine translated from the original Russian.
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Smith & Williamson has succeeding in seeing off rival Quantuma's bid to investors to be appointed administrator of Park First.
A letter sent to Park First investors on Monday 2nd confirms Smith & Williamson's proposals for the administration were accepted in full.
At a court hearing in London last week, Carlauren Group was finally put into administration.
Lawyers for Carlauren investors alleged that Sean Murray transferred significant sums into his own personal account.
Murray responded that the money was accounted for and was just resting in his personal account.
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Allansons investors watching Companies House hoping for some clue as to where £20 million of their money went will have to wait a bit longer, as Allansons LLP again used the one-day-trick to avoid filing accounts within the deadline.
The Companies Act requires private companies to file accounts within nine months of their accounting year ending, but due to a loophole in UK company law, you can extend the deadline by shortening your accounting period by a single day, which gives you an extra three months.
Allansons deployed this trick in August and now again on 18 November, meaning its last published accounts are now almost two years old.
A crucial court date looms on Monday 25th as stricken Park First investors decide whether to appoint Park First's own choice of administrators, Smith & Williamson, or rivals Quantuma LLP, proposed by an investor group.
A reminder of where we stand at the moment:
Back when the FCA shut down Park First as an illegal collective investment scheme, £33m of assets were ringfenced by the FCA to meet repayments to investors.
Smith & Williamson claimed that this sum would only be available to investors if they voted to appoint Smith & Williamson, otherwise Park First would withdraw it, and investors would risk getting nothing.
#TeamQuantuma claimed that this was false, and that the FCA had confirmed to Quantuma that the £33m was still ringfenced for investors regardless of which administrator they appointed.
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A Professional Adviser article reveals that Exmount Commercial Developments, which disappeared with investors' money in the summer of 2019, has continued to scam investors even after disappearing.
Continue reading..."The couple had invested their life savings with Exmount in 2018, after they were promised between 9.12% and 10.35% annual returns on their investment with three- or five-year bonds. The couple began investing a small amount of money, but over the course of a year took out five mini-bonds with Exmount for a total of £45,000.
The pair tried to redeem the unregulated bonds in early August 2019. According to Chan, a company representative asked the couple to pay a £606 exit fee. The pair paid, thinking they could get their capital back, but were then told there had been an error, and were asked to send an additional £606.
