Carvier Ltd – Shut down in Carbon Credits scam!

Carvier Ltd – a third Nwikpo scam – shut down

More grief for the Nwikpo brothers. The trio made ­thousands from a landbanking scam that traded as Tullett Brown, flogging plots of fields as development opportunities when in reality they were worthless.

It was shut down in the public interest by the High Court last June after Daniel Nwikpo, 33, of North London, and brothers John and Barinua raked in £668,000.

A second investment sham, Foxstone Carr Ltd, was shut down in November and now firm number three has gone the same way.

Carvier Ltd sold so-called green ­investments known as carbon credits.

Barinua Nwikpo, better known as Barry, was a director, though the High Court heard that he “sought to hide his involvement in the company by using a Mr Hall as ‘the acceptable face’ of the company”.

The scale of the scam is unknown because the firm refused to co-operate with the Insolvency Service.

Source DAILY MIRROR – June 6, 2013

Club Class Members – Beware!

Rest Assured Property Services preys on Club Class victims

Hundreds of victims of the Club Class holiday club scam – a regular in this column – have been hit a second time.

They’ve been coldcalled by Rest Assured Property Services, which claimed to have buyers lined up for unwanted Class Class membership.

But it didn’t sell a single membership despite demanding fees of up to £1,460.

Run on paper from Crawley, West Sussex, by 48-year-old Alan Keene and Rosemay Nye, 52, the company raked in £226,000 which was squandered on designer goods and holidays. The Insolvency Service has now had it shut down in the High Court.

All the known victims of Rest Assured were also all members of the Club Class holiday group, seven connected companies which were wound up in the public interest by the High Court in London on 3 October 2012.

David Hill of The Insolvency Service said: “This company cynically targeted people who had been victims of a previous scam, using slick patter and preying on their desperation to rid themselves of the worthless products they had already been mis-sold.

“Putting a stop to these companies protects the public from being ripped off and defends legitimate, decent businesses from being undercut by those not playing by the rules.”

Source  DAILY MIRROR  January 30, 2013

 

Viva Connect – No Answer!

No answers from Viva Connect

Put “Viva Connect” into Google and the first hit you get comes under the heading Timeshare Scams, the second is Beware Viva Connect, and only then do you get Viva Connect’s own website.

“The customer is always paramount,” boasts the site, which offers to sell unwanted timeshare and holiday club membership.

“They promised to sell my holiday package last May, they said they already had a buyer,” we were told by Frank Harvey of Aylesbury, Bucks.

He paid the firm £1,500 but has since been told that the buyer has pulled out.

“I’ve tried to get my money back but without luck,” he said.

We’ve had not joy either, Viva Connect of Benalmedena near Malaga, hasn’t even replied to us.

SOURCE – DAILY MIRROR – October 17, 2012

 

Jailed for a total of 39 years.

Peter Bibby on the run while other boiler room crooks get jailed

Seven crooks who ran an £8million boiler room scam flogging worthless shares in a supposedly successful bio-diesel enterprise have been jailed for a total of 39 years.

Worldwide Bio Refineries was portrayed by coldcallers as a fantastic investment, turning vegetable waste into fuel, but it was a dormant company with just £20 in its bank account.

The Serious Fraud Office says: “The share-selling was undertaken by salesmen working from a number of boiler rooms in Marbella and Barcelona although many of them used false names and claimed to be calling from offices Frankfurt, Stockholm or Amsterdam.
“The business prospects of the company and the bio-diesel market were inflated by WBR’s directors and the salesmen, who claimed that substantial international business was being done and that the business’s shares were valued at £110 million.

“Investors believed that their investment in a successful bio-diesel enterprise would net them significant short term returns, bolstered by claims that WBR was to be floated on the stock market which would result in a significant increase in share value. These claims were bogus.

“The reality was that the UK bio-diesel plant produced no output and, with only limited imports coming from a Singapore plant, WBR was not being managed with any intention of it becoming a growing commercial success generating profits from sales of bio-diesel. WBR was simply a vehicle for fraud.”

At Ipswich Crown Court, Dennis Potter of Singapore, born April 1939, was jailed for seven years. Redmond “Ray” Charles Johnson of Tyne and Wear, born September 1944, got three years.

From Marbella, Steven John Murphy, born in February 1976 and Greg Pearson, born August 1973, both got six years inside.

From Hertfordshire, Paul Daniel Murphy, born in September 1973 got six years and Lee Eliot Homan, born in July 1972, got five years and six months.

Peter Bibby from south London, born in September 1967 is on the run. He was sentenced in absentia to six years.

Serious Fraud Office director Director Richard Alderman said, “I am very pleased with the sentences in this case which reflect the callous way the criminals preyed on their victims.”

Potter and Johnson were associates of Alternative Diesel Investments, run by Robert Alan Scott and an earlier “completely fraudulent” operation.

SOURCE – DAILY MIRROR – October 5th 2011

 

British expats beat Spanish bank

British expats beat Spanish bank in six-year property feud

By Sean O’Hare |

 Telegraph – Thu, Jul 11, 2013 0

A Spanish bank that refused to return off-plan deposits belonging to 47 British expats who invested in a failed Spanish property development has been ordered to repay €1.5million, following a six-year legal battle.

Known collectively as the Finca Parcs Action Group , the expats each paid between €10,000-70-000 in deposits for off-plan homes on a ‘luxury development’ near Murcia, only for the developer to disappear and Spain’s fourth biggest savings bank, Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo (CAM), to withold their down payments.

Keith Rule who has headed the action group and fought for the return of his €53,000, said: “For far too long Spain has alienated the very people who once helped the country prosper.

“Now the Spanish Government must learn important lessons from this case.

“If these types of cases are dealt with in a fair and speedy manner then maybe some of those people who have been the victims of negligence and malpractice may once again have the confidence to invest in Spanish property.

“After all that is what Spain wants and more importantly, desperately needs.”

CAM bank was the sole financial entity in the project, responsible for financing the development, accepting the off-plan deposits and issuing the corresponding, legally required, bank guarantee certificates to buyers.

In 2009, four years after the first deposits were handed over, the developer abandoned the development and disappeared, having built only a fraction of the homes, while the expats were still without the required bank guarantees, despite repeated requests.

“We did everything by the book before buying into these properties so felt particularly let down when the bank pulled the rug from under our feet, said Mr Rule.

“The development was advertised in Easy Jet magazine, the sales agent was British, the developer even stated on the reservation forms that it was represented by a UK lawyer, the project was launched with a champagne reception at Chelsea Football Club surrounded by sporting celebrities – we didn’t think for a minute it would all go so disastrously wrong”, said Keith.

When investors realised their holiday homes would never be built, Cam bank replied that it was not obliged to return their money because they were not in receipt of the very certificates it was supposed to issue.

At the court hearing in Hellín, Spain, the judge ruled against developer Cleyton GES SL and CAM bank, referring to ‘serious breaches’ on behalf of the developer and an ‘absolute disregard by CAM bank to the obligations imposed on financial institutions by Spanish law.’

CAM bank was nationalised by the Spanish government in 2011 and then sold to Banco Sabadell for the sum of 1€, with all future losses underwritten by the government for the following five years.

Banco Sabadell declined to comment on the ruling.

The ruling gives hope to other expats, believed to run into the thousands, who have suffered at the hands of unscrupulous Spanish banks and developers after investing in Spanish property.

There are estimated to be 700,000 unsold holiday homes in Spain, the majority of which are located along the southern coastlines, where property prices have dropped by as much as 60 per cent in certain regions.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Spain said: “The government and British Embassy in Madrid continue to urge the Spanish authorities to seek solutions to the problems facing property owners”.