Boiler Room Scams

[Lee Shepherd]

The problem we have here is we dont actually know of what the issue at hand is.
If its of the worst kind where the directors get prosecuted (or not) or the company becomes insolvent/shut down/no money then you wont get a penny back, you could try taking them to court but as the saying goes, 'you cant get blood out of a stone', this would be costly to yourself and on the amount you have invested would not be worth the hassle, also there's little chance of winning if they have nothing to give.

Your investment (and I use the term lightly) would equate to around £2,000GBP.

The only thing one can do is hold onto the shares and await the company outcome.
It's still possible at this stage you may get something back, although this could take some time.

If the outcome is that you've paid £2k for this lesson, be thankful it wasn't more than you could afford to lose and that it wasn't a great deal more.

Also, try ringing them as oppose to just emailing, it easier to ignore emails and they may not be recieving them.

 

[melmckenzie]

Thanks for your swift reply.
So in the meantime I will wait for any news that will come out from them.
Yeah Ive invested 2000pounds, and that money I borrowed from the bank and will pay for 5 years. I learn my lesson now. I hope things will turn out fine in not to far future with wildwood.
If I see any changes from wildwood I hope you can assist me on what step shall I take to sell them or sell them back to wildwood.
I hope you wont get tired on my messages.
cheers

The problem we have here is we dont actually know of what the issue at hand is.
If its of the worst kind where the directors get prosecuted (or not) or the company becomes insolvent/shut down/no money then you wont get a penny back, you could try taking them to court but as the saying goes, 'you cant get blood out of a stone', this would be costly to yourself and on the amount you have invested would not be worth the hassle, also there's little chance of winning if they have nothing to give.

Your investment (and I use the term lightly) would equate to around £2,000GBP.

The only thing one can do is hold onto the shares and await the company outcome.
It's still possible at this stage you may get something back, although this could take some time.

If the outcome is that you've paid £2k for this lesson, be thankful it wasn't more than you could afford to lose and that it wasn't a great deal more.

Also, try ringing them as oppose to just emailing, it easier to ignore emails and they may not be recieving them.

Th

 

[Ally_Catz]

My elderly father too has been conned out of life savings and is absolutely mortified. He bought about 25-40k of the following shares from Bayer Investments based in Luxembourg: Apollo Resources; Synergetic Technologies (now Praebius Communications), Innocom Technologies, BioSolutions and Nano Chemicals. All restricted certificates, all US, all over 12months old, all possibly unsaleable and basically declared of no value!!! Was contacted by Bayer last week to buy Saviour Energy in order to sell BioS stock, but refused after speaking with FSA. Contacted 2 different FSA approved brokers who said they were worthless shares and they would not be able to sell them, even after lifting restrictions for about £30 not the £1500 Bayer wanted!! Can my dad get restrictions lifted direct from US and sell - would anyone even buy them?

 

[Lee Shepherd]

The simple fact is that your father has bought worthless share.

Would you be able to sell nothing to someone else that wants to buy them?

Thats your answer.

Or....hype them up as a good company and sell them to someone else..just like what has happened.

My elderly father too has been conned out of life savings and is absolutely mortified. He bought about 25-40k of the following shares from Bayer Investments based in Luxembourg: Apollo Resources; Synergetic Technologies (now Praebius Communications), Innocom Technologies, BioSolutions and Nano Chemicals. All restricted certificates, all US, all over 12months old, all possibly unsaleable and basically declared of no value!!! Was contacted by Bayer last week to buy Saviour Energy in order to sell BioS stock, but refused after speaking with FSA. Contacted 2 different FSA approved brokers who said they were worthless shares and they would not be able to sell them, even after lifting restrictions for about £30 not the £1500 Bayer wanted!! Can my dad get restrictions lifted direct from US and sell - would anyone even buy them?

 

[ArrEnn]

It is a lamentable fact the 'shares' you have been sold are either in companies that have no material value, no business, no money, no profit... or in some cases, but not specifically these, companies that do not even exist.

You are doing the right thing by reporting to City of London Police, Operation Archway. These guys are inundated with similar reports, but then more that they get, the greater the case they can build. Get your details over to them, so that in the event of any financial recovery, there may be something for you.

In respect of the FSA and unregistered brokers - they look for facts and a number of complaints before they will consider 'black listing' them publicly (they have to be careful that they are not sued by 'good guys' if they name and shame an innocent party). Give them proof, copies of letters, correspondence etc. Again the more that complain, the better the chance of action being taken.

I admire the positive nature of threads about getting some money back. PLEASE be realistic & do not raise your hopes too much - these guys are crooks - they'll not hand you your money back and say sorry. The money that you have sent has long gone. The only chance, and it is very small, of any recovery, is if the crooks are caught (aka Gunter the other week), they are successfully prosecuted, an order to recover their ill gotton gains (fixed and liquid assets) is approved by the courts and there is any money left. Then and only then, it may be distributed by the courts / law enforcement. Then it may be on a pro rata basis, with all the other victims. It will take years.
Level set your expectations with the unpalatable facts of reality.

LASTLY, also be warned, that their latest wheeze, is to call the victims again, offering to buy their worthless shares, offering all sorts of apologies for the poor performance, against an investment in another 'magnificant' company. For an advance transfer fee, they can make this happen for you. Do NOT do it. The transfer fee is just another way of ripping you off again.

Be safe. Be careful.

 

[Aston1st]

"Greed is Good, Greed is right"

The only thing that ripped off these guys is their override button that muted caution and turned up the volume for GREED.

African Probverb: " A Fool and his money soon goes their separate ways"

On buying these shares most "Duped Investors" do less due dilligence then buying a £15,000 new Car!
Not even a New Car depreciates faster than these phoney "Investments".

 

[looker1]

"Greed is Good, Greed is right"

The only thing that ripped off these guys is their override button that muted caution and turned up the volume for GREED.

African Probverb: " A Fool and his money soon goes their separate ways"

On buying these shares most "Duped Investors" do less due dilligence then buying a £15,000 new Car!
Not even a New Car depreciates faster than these phoney "Investments".

Good point,

As I have stated numerous times on this board and others, when posting put all the company details you can in, including the websites, link out to them from here too, that way, when someone else is doing due diligence this site will come up above these 2 bit scam sites easily.

 

[Aggie]

I now see that priority venture management seem to have disappeared. no emails and no phone numbers any news as to them being caught, or are criminals like these allowed to start up again

 

[Splitlink]

"You and Yours" a BBC4 consumer programme deals with a woman whose husband committed suicide
because of being scammed.

It is in the last ten minutes of today's programme and may help to put people off of cold callers.

It can be downloaded.

Split

 

[Splitlink]

Radio4 "Today" has a piece on this morning's programme. At Approx 0735, or 1 hour 35 minutes into the programme.

Police reckon about 500,000,000 GBP per year is scammed. FSA say 200,000,000 GBP. Some difference!

For those interested, and that means all of us near a telephone, the City of London Police have a department called "Operation Archway", who wants to know as soon as a call is received.

The difference between a genuine broker and a scammer is that the scammers call is unsolicited.

Split

 

[anley]

Split

You sure you've got the figures right because £500k looks far too small to me. I'd put the losses from the UK nearer £25million a year if not far more.

And re that radio program, don't know if it's the same one but a friend just told me that a Tom Wilmot was on the radio, he's working for the Police in their Operation Archway task force which is looking into all the scammers.

Anyway, a new scam is when you've been scammed you'll get a very sympathetic phone call from a different company offering to help in some way. I don't think they're after purchasing your shares, rather 'debt recovery' etc.

Whatever the case these will be the same scammers that first stole your money and will be looking for an 'advance fee' to try and 'help' you get the money back. Of course if any further monies are paid to these crooks it will be stolen again.

SO WATCH OUT EVERYONE AND REMEMBER YOUR FIRST LOSS WITH BOILER ROOMS IS A) YOUR BEST ONE AND B) SHOULD BE YOUR ONLY ONE.

PS. I really hope the City of London Police get a lot of these crooks and any scammers who are reading this 'tick, tock, tick, tock' THEY'RE COMING AFTER YOU...........hope you don't lose much sleep overnight worrying about the 'knock' at the door that's most probably coming

 

[anley]

RAMT

I have heard of 'Claimtracker Ltd' before. Can't remember where though but from memory I don't think they were saying good things, something about the guy running it, or had run it in the past having a very suspect business background.

These days if in doubt with any company that's trying to sell you dreams or riches - STAY CLEAR or use these message boards to discuss them further. 30 mins of anyone's time spent researching via the internet could well save £10k+ of potential losses.

AGAIN - BE ON YOUR GUARD EVERYONE

 

[Splitlink]

Split

You sure you've got the figures right because £500k looks far too small to me. I'd put the losses from the UK nearer £25million a year if not far more.

And re that radio program, don't know if it's the same one but a friend just told me that a Tom Wilmot was on the radio, he's working for the Police in their Operation Archway task force which is looking into all the scammers.

Anyway, a new scam is when you've been scammed you'll get a very sympathetic phone call from a different company offering to help in some way. I don't think they're after purchasing your shares, rather 'debt recovery' etc.

Whatever the case these will be the same scammers that first stole your money and will be looking for an 'advance fee' to try and 'help' you get the money back. Of course if any further monies are paid to these crooks it will be stolen again.

SO WATCH OUT EVERYONE AND REMEMBER YOUR FIRST LOSS WITH BOILER ROOMS IS A) YOUR BEST ONE AND B) SHOULD BE YOUR ONLY ONE.

PS. I really hope the City of London Police get a lot of these crooks and any scammers who are reading this 'tick, tock, tick, tock' THEY'RE COMING AFTER YOU...........hope you don't lose much sleep overnight worrying about the 'knock' at the door that's most probably coming

Sorry. You are quite right---I've missed the missing millions! Should have had 3 more zeros on the end, i.e. 200,000,000 GBP and 500,000,000.

I'm editing that post, by the way.

Split

 

[Peter Furner]

Anley,

The informant on BBC2's Working Lunch today estimated boiler room losses as £1,000 million per year.

There is another episode tomorrow on Working Lunch between 12:30 - 13:30hours.

 

[Splitlink]

Anley,

You need to wipe your glasses! Splitlink gave "500,000,000 GBP", that's £500 million not the "£500k" you quoted him as saying. Your estimate of £25million of the loss is put in the shade by the informant on BBC2's Working Lunch today who estimated £1,000,000,000 per year, that's one thousand million pounds.

There is another episode tomorrow on Working Lunch between 12:30 - 13:30hours.

No, No, No! . I'm in enough trouble, to-day, already!

Anley was right and I edited that post because it was incorrect.

Split

 

[anley]

£1billion for worldwide doesn't surprise me at all but just for the UK sounds too much.

Whatever the case we all agree on the fact that it's a significant figure.

 

[philyates]

CTL Digital

I know the company (they owe me money) - they made some redundancies this week, but are still trading, they have a severe cash flow problem at the moment ...

Hi, how do they owe you money? It is of interest to me, as i have loaned them some money as a Temporary Loan to help them through their hard times before floatation.

 

[anley]

Hi, how do they owe you money? It is of interest to me, as i have loaned them some money as a Temporary Loan to help them through their hard times before floatation.

Phil

I'd do some more research into them if I was you plus DON'T pay them anymore money.

I feel somebody is dropping the old carrot of 'floatation' in front of you and if the company is not doing well at present then the probabilities suggest that there will be no floatation in the future.

And if you were cold called about investing in them then there's a fair chance that the caller was a scammer. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but honest opinions are best in situations such as this.

 

[colin howes]

Pharma Holdings shares

I too echanged Echo shares for Pharma Holdings in 2006 and now own 5600 shares. I was concerned it might be a scam so last year I had the FSA investigate. They informed me that as long as I held a certificate validated by Pharma Holdings that I did asctually own shares in this legitimate company. When, if ever, I will be able to sell the share is a pure mystery?

I bought shares for Pharma Holdings inc from Argus Global. They sold my shares in Echo without my consent and I now hold 3000 shares inPharma holdings I have share certificates, but are they usless? I can't find out. I have been approached by a company called Oceanic Investment Group a John Hardy called me. Apparently I now have 12000 shares and a company wants to buy them for $12.50 ( I paid $5 ) the only thing is I have to pay 98cents per share to have the shares unrestriced. The fax I received was quite elaberate with a page signed by a solicitor. But am I going to send them almost $12000 am I hell. Just have to write this down to experience.

 

[Martin Kong3]

I always wonder how does these boiler rooms get our phone number.