Tony Hetherington is Monetary Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, preventing readers corners, revealing the reality that lies behind closed doorways and profitable victories for individuals who have been left out-of-pocket. Learn how to contact him beneath.
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What might probably be worse than discovering that the trusted high salesman at a multi-million pound gold funding firm is utilizing an alias and has a dodgy previous? Properly, how about the truth that the proprietor of the identical agency additionally makes use of an alias and has a dodgy previous!
Two weeks in the past, I revealed that salesman Clive Lindsay, of Solomon World Restricted, is admittedly Clive Mongelard, whose document as an funding scammer dates again over a decade. He’s banned by the Monetary Conduct Authority from working for any agency it regulates.
Two days after The Mail on Sunday’s report appeared, Solomon World’s managing director Paul Williams wrote: ‘Thanks for bringing the problems surrounding Clive Lindsay to our consideration by way of your article.
‘We take these issues significantly, and because of this now we have terminated Clive’s employment.’ Up to now, so good. However a more in-depth look into Solomon World, which sells gold cash as investments and had a turnover final yr of virtually £14 million, discovered surprisingly little at first in regards to the background of its shadowy proprietor, Scott Wilson.
Firm data present that final January he acquired a greater than 50 per cent stake within the enterprise, and Solomon World instructed Corporations Home that whereas he was not a director himself, he had the facility to nominate or dismiss administrators to run the enterprise for him. Since then, Wilson has boosted his stake to 75 per cent or extra.
All that glitters: Solomon World boss Scott Wilson is definitely Scott Assemakis
He describes himself as a ‘enterprise marketing consultant specialising in advertising and gross sales’, however his LinkedIn web page doesn’t embrace {a photograph} and mentions solely a spell as a self-employed salesman at an artwork gallery.
From 2014 to 2022 he claims vaguely to have labored in monetary companies, however doesn’t identify a single employer, not to mention any directorships or controlling shareholdings.
And this isn’t shocking, since I can now reveal that Scott Wilson is definitely Scott Assemakis.
Beneath his actual identify, he lately had an 11-year ban on appearing as a director of any firm lifted.
The restriction got here in 2013, after he performed a number one function in what the Insolvency Service described as a ‘£7million land-banking rip-off’.
Utilizing quite a lot of enterprise names together with Ultraclass, Burnhill Land Investments, and The Property Partnership, Assemakis and his crew offered plots of vastly overpriced land with false claims about its growth potential.
One investor paid £10,000 for a strip of land close to Towcester in Northamptonshire, solely to search out that the council had already banned constructing even a fence on it, and its actual worth was about £75.
Investigators from the Insolvency Service discovered Assemakis had pocketed over £1.3 million from the rip-off, whereas hundreds of thousands extra vanished with out hint.
When the ban started in 2013, Assemakis needed to stand down as a director of one other of his funding firms, European High quality Wines Restricted.
It marketed wines at nicely above the costs charged by legit wine retailers and went into liquidation quickly after he give up. Collectors claimed £3.4 million.
They obtained simply 1.4p for each pound they have been owed.One other one-time director at European High quality Wines was Emrah Ceyhan. And till final January, when he handed over to Scott Assemakis, he was the behind-the-scenes boss of Solomon World.
Each Williams and Assemakis have been invited to remark, however neither did so.
Nonetheless, with the proprietor of Solomon World and its main salesman each feeling the necessity to use aliases due to previous offences – which have left traders nursing large losses – it’s not shocking that the Promoting Requirements Authority banned the corporate’s current promotion for making deceptive claims.
It might maybe be silly to anticipate something much less.
Bailiffs after me for an error that wasn’t mine
C.S. writes: I’m being pursued by Direct Assortment Bailiffs Ltd for alleged unpaid parking fees imposed by Britannia Parking, however that is completely as a result of an error made by the parking agency itself.
Tony Hetherington replies: You instructed me that you simply and your spouse paid for parking at Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast, in a carpark managed by the native authority. Nonetheless, the cafe there was full, so that you drove to the close by automotive park at North Touchdown, wrongly believing it was additionally run by the native council. Later that day, you left the automotive park, however drove again to let your disabled spouse use the general public bogs there earlier than returning dwelling.
Expensive: The Flamborough Head automotive park on the Yorkshire coast is managed by the native authority
You realised your error when Britannia Parking, the corporate behind the North Touchdown automotive park, contacted you. However to your shock, you obtained two Penalty Cost Notices (PCNs), not one. Every was for £100, diminished to £60 for those who paid shortly and with out interesting. You paid the primary £60 PCN however appealed towards the second.
That is the place issues went badly unsuitable, as a result of Britannia connected your enchantment to the primary PCN, which you had paid. Confusingly, it minimize the second penalty to £20, which you additionally paid. Even worse, it handed the primary PCN to debt collectors and the sum rocketed to £170.
I contacted each Britannia and its debt collectors. The latter shortly instructed me that Britannia had requested them to stop additional motion. Britannia itself admitted it had made an ‘administrative error’ together with your enchantment. It defined that it counted every separate entry into the automotive park as a brand new go to, with a brand new payment – though the unique cost coated you for each.
Britannia has withdrawn all calls for towards you, however refuses to supply any remark or rationalization, saying it ‘can’t touch upon particular person instances’, even supposing it held your signed authority to debate its errors with me.
If you happen to consider you’re the sufferer of economic wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Monetary Mail, 9 Derry Road, London W8 5HY or e-mail tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Due to the excessive quantity of enquiries, private replies can’t be given. Please ship solely copies of authentic paperwork, which we remorse can’t be returned.
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