Is this a genuine company or a scam?

[Julietbravo]

Please can anyone tell me whether Eden Brown Group are a legitimate company? They are based in Spain and a member of my family has been sending them money for carbon neutral investments. Should I be worried? If so, who can I report this to?

 

[pboyles]

Please can anyone tell me whether Eden Brown Group are a legitimate company? They are based in Spain and a member of my family has been sending them money for carbon neutral investments. Should I be worried? If so, who can I report this to?

Yes they are a scam. Report it to the FSA and City of London Police, Operation Archway. Don't expect much action though. Most likely the money is lost, these are criminals operating a fraud. Nothing to do with 'investments'.

 

[Lightning McQueen]

Please can anyone tell me whether Eden Brown Group are a legitimate company? They are based in Spain and a member of my family has been sending them money for carbon neutral investments. Should I be worried? If so, who can I report this to?

can you tell us how the family member got themselves involved with carbon investments and the eden brown group?

 

[Julietbravo]

Apologies if I am not replying correctly but thanks for your responses. I'm unfamiliar with forums but obviously desperate to stop this! I have no idea how the involvement occurred but I think it was something to do with an article or advertisement published in Money Week. Now there are almost daily telephone calls from an international number which made me smell a rat!

 

[pboyles]

Apologies if I am not replying correctly but thanks for your responses. I'm unfamiliar with forums but obviously desperate to stop this! I have no idea how the involvement occurred but I think it was something to do with an article or advertisement published in Money Week. Now there are almost daily telephone calls from an international number which made me smell a rat!

It's a familiar story, generally referred to as a boiler room scam (though in this case it's not shares but carbon credits). These criminals will bleed your relative dry of money. Then there will be follow up scams where they will try to get more money on the promise of recovering the initial loss. They will not give up because they have got some money and now consider your relative to be a mug and therefore likely to part with more money.

Like I said don't expect much help from the authorities. Best just to change the phone number and accept the money is lost.

 

[Julietbravo]

Yes, I suspected as much. How do these people sleep at night? The best I can do now is report it and try to prevent further losses. I didn't know about the follow up calls claiming to recover the losses. That's one to watch out for. Thank you so much. I can take the appropriate action now.

 

[pboyles]

Yes, I suspected as much. How do these people sleep at night? The best I can do now is report it and try to prevent further losses. I didn't know about the follow up calls claiming to recover the losses. That's one to watch out for. Thank you so much. I can take the appropriate action now.

They're criminals, same sort of people that break into houses or rob pensioners. I don't imagine it bothers them much.

Any call your relative gets in future related in any way to investments will be a scam.

 

[Splitlink]

Yes they are a scam. Report it to the FSA and City of London Police, Operation Archway. Don't expect much action though. Most likely the money is lost, these are criminals operating a fraud. Nothing to do with 'investments'.

The strange thing that I find about these companies, whether in Spain
or not, is that I don't run across them.

Why is that? They never get in touch with me, unless they are the anonymous, telephoned, voices that I hang up on. One clue as to what those are is when the phone rings at the other end. That means that they are phoning whole groups of people at the same time.

The clues to hang up are there before they, even, get the first words out. Another one is that most of them do not know your name, which they should do and, also, that they introduce themselves, such as, "Hallo, I am John Brown, etc.

Their first task is to get a response from the called person so that they can get a conversation going. Most of the time, all they get from me is silence, until I identify their motives.

The people I know have a way of opening the call that shows familiarity with me and/or my family. Very few others get past.

 

[Lightning McQueen]

Apologies if I am not replying correctly but thanks for your responses. I'm unfamiliar with forums but obviously desperate to stop this! I have no idea how the involvement occurred but I think it was something to do with an article or advertisement published in Money Week. Now there are almost daily telephone calls from an international number which made me smell a rat!

if they contacted them of their own free will they've invited on themselves all they get to be blunt. as pb has advised, tell the family member to give them no further money.

eden brown group claim they are fsa registered, as in being an authorised intermediary of amini financial services gmbh. the only thing is that they don't appear as such on the fsa register, the only authorised entity associated with amini that's apparent is Tradenext Limited, and they are listed as being "former". i strongly suspect that eden brown group are bogus. there is previous chatter from last year on this site pointing to this. if you contact the fsa they will no doubt confirm your worst fears.

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/educational-resources/14154-boiler-room-scams-296.html#post1440788

 

[Lightning McQueen]

The strange thing that I find about these companies, whether in Spain
or not, is that I don't run across them.

Why is that? They never get in touch with me, unless they are the anonymous, telephoned, voices that I hang up on. One clue as to what those are is when the phone rings at the other end. That means that they are phoning whole groups of people at the same time.

The clues to hang up are there before they, even, get the first words out. Another one is that most of them do not know your name, which they should do and, also, that they introduce themselves, such as, "Hallo, I am John Brown, etc.

Their first task is to get a response from the called person so that they can get a conversation going. Most of the time, all they get from me is silence, until I identify their motives.

The people I know have a way of opening the call that shows familiarity with me and/or my family. Very few others get past.

thing is mate the victim made first contact, they responded to an ad.

 

[pboyles]

thing is mate the victim made first contact, they responded to an ad.

I'd guess they responded to an ad offering a free newsletter or other crap about investments. This is all designed to get contact details. Of course the victim doesn't know that.

 

[Lightning McQueen]

found them on german bafin site.

BaFin - Register der vertraglich gebundenen Vermittler

so a while ago they were associated with Milofo Asset Management gmbh 2008/09. but an account application found where they associate themselves with amini has a much later date of 2011. i'd guess they're not now properly registered at all. they don't appear on the unauthorised firms list. if they're not properly registered, why doesn't the fsa register reflect this?

 

[Lightning McQueen]

I'd guess they responded to an ad offering a free newsletter or other crap about investments. This is all designed to get contact details. Of course the victim doesn't know that.

for sure, we don't know the type of ad they responded. info a bit scant there, maybe the op can help further. whichever way though, they still freely gave out their number to them.

 

[Splitlink]

Ok, I've found it on Google. I know that street. A lot of clothes wholesalers at street level, with a Chinese import presence. A respectable architect has a third floor office in one of the buildings.

I expect Eden is a forwarding agent for enquiries. Could be a respectable business, in themselves, hence the willingness to post location details on the internet, but don't want to be responsible for their clients, who are outside of Spain. I doubt whether they would divulge any information to anyone who was not a policeman.

 

[pboyles]

Ok, I've found it on Google. I know that street. A lot of clothes wholesalers at street level, with a Chinese import presence. A respectable architect has a third floor office in one of the buildings.

I expect Eden is a forwarding agent for enquiries. Could be a respectable business, in themselves, hence the willingness to post location details on the internet, but don't want to be responsible for their clients, who are outside of Spain. I doubt whether they would divulge any information to anyone who was not a policeman.

The address is just a Regus office, they're probably paying 100 euros a month to use it and have mail forwarded. You can buy a virtual office address on Buickingham Palace Road, it doesnt mean you're neighbours with The Queen.

Executive suites Barcelona. Office space - Regus USA

 

[pboyles]

I expect Eden is a forwarding agent for enquiries. Could be a respectable business, in themselves, hence the willingness to post location details on the internet, but don't want to be responsible for their clients, who are outside of Spain. I doubt whether they would divulge any information to anyone who was not a policeman.

No I suspect they just rent a virtual office and pretend they operate from there.

 

[Julietbravo]

I guess if you're clued up as to what to look out for then that's half the battle. These people prey on the elderly and vulnerable. I suspect their smooth talking patter has done the trick in my incident!!! I never get these calls either but I don't have a huge portfolio of stocks and shares. I wouldn't discuss that kind of thing with a random caller anyway but their system clearly works unfortunately!!

 

[Julietbravo]

I looked at Eden Browns website to try and establish which regulatory bodies they were registered with and it said BAFin and FSA. However, the FSA register was a bit confusing and my knowledge of these things is limited. Hopefully they will be able to clarify the position when I can contact them tomorrow. I think it's safe to say this is a scam and we can kiss goodbye to the money already 'invested'. Thanks for all the replies, it's been a huge help

 

[Lightning McQueen]

well at least try to get some money back. you must at least try.

though it seems that there may be several entities operating at the same address in barcelona. here's one, Amber Capital Partners BaFin - Register der vertraglich gebundenen Vermittler they also are associated with Amini Financial Services GmbH. according to motley fool posts have peddled out exact crap same as eden brown TMF: Amber Capital / A fool And His Money...

can someone remind us why there are regulators again! do they actually do any work at all??

 

[Splitlink]

No I suspect they just rent a virtual office and pretend they operate from there.

I wonder what they say, though, to those who visit them., just that they will forward the enquiries to someone else?

Don't ask me to go and find out!