By Chris Lang
A couple of weeks ago, REDD-Monitor wrote about a company called Sterling and Bond. The company offered “guaranteed” returns of 14% over 18 months. I described it as a “ridiculously obvious scam”.
Today I received a reply from Andrew Nash, the managing director of Sterling and Bond (posted in full, below).
Nash doesn’t provide any new information in his response. Like where his company is registered, for example.
Neither does he explain why Sterling and Bond’s Australian address is the same as that of Velvet Assets, a company that is part of the Capital Alternatives network. The two companies even share the same phone number.
Two other companies also share this phone number: Able Alternatives and Curzon Commodities. Both companies have offices in Dubai, London, Australia and Hong Kong (as does Sterling and Bond). Curzon Commodities shares the same office addresses with Sterling and Bond in Dubai, Australia and Hong Kong. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence!
Here’s how one ex-employee of Able Alternatives describes his work for the company:
My junior brokers continually pass me qualified leads from extensive marketing campaigns and by calling perspective [sic] clients using sales scripts created by myself.
Which sounds nothing like a boiler room, does it?
From: Andrew Nash [email protected]
Date: 11 November 2014 09:58
Subject: Details/Sterling and Bond
To: [email protected]Dear Chris
1. You have a credible site therefor to use the words ‘suckers’ in your article is both disrespectful and derogatory.
2. You have mentioned that this is a ‘ridiculously obvious scam’. We do not have an issue answering questions about our company if you direct these to our company. To make allegations like this in a public forum is both unprofessional and malicious. Sterling and Bond has a large number of satisfied clients who continue to receive returns and capital repayments from their VOIP Tel investment. There is no indication that the VOIP Tel investment is a ‘scam’. In addition by offering to swap investor out of carbon investments is actually a loss leader for us but what it does do is allow is to take on new clients who we can service going forward. There is no upfront cost to this contrary to what you have said. There is an additional investment they need to make and there is no pressure to make this additional investment it is totally down to the client. Again by offering this swap is actually a good way of gaining new clients. It is both malicious and defamatory to suggest this is a scam on the basis of these swaps.
3. Capital Alternatives has no connection what so ever with both Sterling and Bond and VOIP Tel. Again adding this to your article is mischievous and damaging.
In summary Sterling and Bond operates a sound and respected business with a large number of satisfied clients. Your article is based on malice and misinformation and is very damaging to our business. In fact it has resulted in a tangible loss of business. This is totally unacceptable and I would ask you to kindly remove this article immediately and the malicious blogs it has attracted or we will take immediate action which may result in looking to you personally for the recovery of damages suffered as a direct result of this article.
Kind Regards,
Andrew Nash
Managing Director
There is another blog on redd-monitor about Voiptel and one of the people posted this information below.
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I have been getting offers from different companies so I did some research and found links to the people who were prosecuted by the FCA and people who worked at Capital Alternatives.
I received information from Sterling and Bond about swapping palm oil into a product called Voiptel so I looked for some details on Sterling and Bond. I found a man called Daniel Bowlin on LinkedIn whose profile says his current job is with Sterling and Bond, but he is also shown as a Wealth Manager at Kinsella and McCarthy Wealth Management.
I found another link to Kinsella and McCarthy when I came across Kristan Gander whose LinkedIn profile shows he used to work for them.
Kristan Gander also used to work for Capital Alternatives in a very senior position. While he was there he was heavily involved in promoting the African Land project in Sierra Leone which was found to be an illegal scheme. This link shows that Kinsella and McCarthy also promoted the illegal African Land project http://www.alternative-confidential.com/site/?p=420 . So there is a link between Daniel Bowlin, Sterling and Bond and Kristan Gander.
Kinsella and McCarthy have no website and their registered office address is not a working office. Sterling and Bond cannot be found in existence anywhere.
Kristan Gander’s involvement in Kinsella and McCarthy does not seem to be completely finished. The director of Kinsella and McCarthy is a lady called Maria Barnard. Kristan Gander’s facebook page shows a photograph of Maria Barnard and it says that he is in a relationship with her.
It is very possible that Sterling and Bond is Kinsella and McCarthy Wealth Management in disguise. In that case Sterling and Bond is being run by Maria Barnard and Kristan Gander.
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I think it is reasonable to assume that Maria Barnard and Kristan Gander are involved in Sterling and Bond in some way. Andrew Nash (who I have discovered is working out of Dubai) has been caught with egg on his face and will struggle to explain how they have no association with Capital Alternatives when both http://www.curzoncommodities.com and Able Alternatives are well known offshoots of Capital Alternatives and they share the same office addresses and telephone numbers as Sterling and Bond. That is no coincidence. Keith Millhench is also a name linked to Sterling and Bond and this is good reason to steer well clear.
It’s a slow process but there is enough interest from the UK – SFO to advance investigations. The amount of malpractice associated with these trades and swaps is immaterial as it stands because it is in the ” buyer beware” zone. The background criminality is thinly disguised.
Definite Scam -I.m with you ReddMonitor all the way -Tip to investors only deal with registered FCA companies in UK if you don.t want to lose your money
That quote sounds very similar to replies on blogs from the past relating to Capital Alternatives Ltd and their operations. The replies would appear immediately there was any question over their credibility. Then low and behold they end up in court…….
Andrew Nash claims to be the managing director of Sterling and Bond. He claims that he is the man in charge. If that is the case Mr Nash, can you please explain the following because an accountant friend of mine thinks your product is rubbish because it doesn’t make sense.
I invested almost £19,500 in 10 acres of African Land with a senior manager at Capital Alternatives Kristan Gander. I never received any return from the investment. After nearly two years of nil returns I was offered a chance to swap my investment into 20 Hectares of a Gola Carbon Project if I invested a further £5,500. I was promised a return from the Gola project within 3 months. I agreed and paid over my £5,500. As readers have probably guessed I never received any return from the Gola project so now I am down by £25,000.
I passed my investment details to the FCA along with my experiences of Capital Alternatives.
Now out of the blue I get a call from Sterling & Bond who want me to invest a further £25,000 into their Project Voiptel with an explanation that they can afford to do this because they would take on my carbon credits and give them a value of £25,000 so I would be getting £50,000 of value in Voiptel. I am confused how they knew the details of my original investment.
I showed this to an accountant friend and he cannot see how on earth Sterling & Bond can possibly be legitimate.
See figures I was offered:
Initial investment Africa Land £19,500 and swapped into carbon credits.
Extra investment of £5,500 into carbon credits
Total investment £25,000
Reinvest a further £25,000 into Voiptel
Total Investment that Sterling and Bond agree will now be £50,000 into Voiptel
They guaranteed me 13% after 18 months which is a payout of £6,500
And then I get my initial payment back of £50,000.
It has been commented that salesmen get 16% commission at Sterling & Bond which is a commission payout of £8000
So from £25,000 you are going to have a net sum of £17,000. Then Voiptel will use that money to pay me £56,500. That means that Voiptel can make a profit for me of more than 200%. It is rubbish.
So Andrew Nash, show us how you can make more than 200% for me AND make money for Voiptel AND make money for Sterling & Bond. It is financially ridiculous to think that you are not operating a SCAM.
Hi guys,
I have posted on other blogs as well and am posting again on this blog, I am a new investor in VOIP and I have had a good experience with them. My returns have been paid on time and I have had no issues whatsoever.
I am replying to the post from Stephanie regarding Sterling and Bond. This is the second post I have made, the first one was not added to the link. It is quite obvious Mr Lang is running a scam here otherwise he would have published my response instead he wishes to post negatives so that he is able to focus on promoting his own products to his client base.
If this post is not added to the link I shall be posting it on a more reliable site.
Sterling and Bond contacted me 4 months ago to discuss my investments. I mentioned I have an investment in African Land. They made it clear that they are offering to take this investment on their books in exchange for an investment of at least 50% of the total investment into a product which has a track record of returns, I was given the details of a few investors to speak to which confirmed that they had been receiving returns according tithe brochure.
The sales person told me that these ‘swaps’ were loss leaders in order to gain clients which they can trade with.
I am actually an ex owner of a VOIP company which I sold recently so I know the VoIP market and felt comfortable with the investment.
The figures work as follows:
Margin on VoIP is around 70% per annum on the kind of routes they are offering.
My AL investment was 10k. I invested a further 10k.
The VOIP company would make a profit of 10.5k (18 mths) plus 10k capital back. That is a small gross profit. After the deduction of sales commissions which I have had confirmed are around 5% on the new cash means that there is no profit but limited downside especially when they expect me to deal again. This is where they make their money. I am comfortable with this as long as they perform.
I am sick of all these negative posts all stirred up by Chris Lang who is only interested in selling his REDD carbon credit product.
@Brian Saunders – At the risk of winning this week’s Basil Fawlty award for stating the bleeding obvious, I’d like to point out that I have no products to promote and I am not selling any REDD carbon credit product.
Thanks you at last for posting my comments.
Well you would say that wouldn’t you, try telling that to the 11 people you have sold investments too who have contacted me!
@Brian Saunders – In a previous comment you said that you had given me money. That was also a lie. I have never sold any investments in anything – to you or to anyone else.
Why don’t you tell me the name of the REDD carbon credit project in which I’m supposed to be selling investments?
I wonder how long it will take for Brian Saunders to realise he’s been scammed! Either that or he is part of the same criminal gang.
Sounds like Andrew Nash, Adam Brown and Nick Start have dug their own grave by annoying the only UAE government dept I would not mess with, unfortunately this is nothing of my doing, as much as I would like to take the credit for this. The old adage of keep your friends close and your enemies closer is not always true, Andrew Nash one of your inner circle has dropped you in the deep end.
Anyone had investments with Graphene Hitech which was later purchased by Sterling and Bonds? I am worried about my investment? I was contacted by a sales person of Sterling and Bond named Paul to invest on VOIP and get my existing graphene investments transferred to VOIP. I didn’t agree to his proposal and asked to transfer my investent to VOIP without further investment. He didn’t agree.
Just received a letter from Sterling & Bond informing clients that they have transferred ownership of Graphene database to Able Alternatives, same address in London, different Tel# same old scam! BEWARE!!
You may be in the same boat aS me. It is a scam and never trust cold callers again.
@Brian Saunders. How is your VoIP investment getting on?
Are you receiving your monthly income returns or have they – much like Sterling & Bond – disappeared?!
The only confirmation regarding fees is that they started at 5%. If you were any kind of investigator or genuine investor and not – as I suspect – one of the people running this spank shop you’d be able to tell people piling their well earned money in to this rubbish that up to 30% (maybe 40%) of their money is paid away in commissions.
Indeed, the sales monkey (let’s not call them brokers, we’re merely feeding their egos) on the phone will be getting 5% on the first £5k invested and then up to 15% depending on the amount the investor/victim invests and how many deals he does..
Sadly, the commission levels of 30%-40% are actually the norm in this world and nobody blinks an eye. What is extremely disconcerting however, is that many of the VoIP contracts sold have involved an inducement by way of cash-back to the client once their money is vested.
You’ve also neglected to inform people that REDD Monitors old friends Renwick Haddow and Chris ‘£14m belly up Rice Farming deal in Africa’ Rathbone (see REDD posts passim) are also involved. Most interestingly I find, that Chris Rathbone is offered up as a pension expert and deals with the SIPPs. Funny, but I’ve never found his name listed with the FCA as G60 qualified or known of any regulated entity to which he has been associated so why any mug would be foolish enough to listen to this man – let alone offer him their pension monies to manage – is beyond me.
The truth of the matter is that the SIPP market has been strangled by the regulator so tightly over the last 2 years that most, if not all, SIPP providers who previously accepted non-standard investments either do not accept them anymore or have simply priced investors out of doing so by charging crippling administration fees.
Finally, could I also ask why you’d be so keen to part with your African Land in exchange for further investment in VoIP? Has this opportunity bucked the trend and trumped all the other opportunities of its kind and actually paid out?! I suspect not…
I’ve many more questions but having followed REDD for some while now felt it time a few truths were told..
I’ll take a chance card I belive Brian Saunders to be a different kettle o investor in the same way a Whale is fish. He is part of the boiler room buddies.
Well all warnings were bit too late for me, I have invested all life savings through Viscount Resources, Graphen Hi Tech Ltd, which has eventually taken over by Sterling and Bond. Please note this is a scam must be reported to appropriate Authority.
I would also encourage any victim of Graphene Hi Tech Ltd or and Viscount Resources please get in touch with me.
Hi Shan,
How to contact you?
Good initiative.
There should me many Graphene victims
First of all I’m thankful to Chris Lang for offering a platform to pass message through Sterling and Bond. Currently Sterling and Bond website doesn’t contain any email or any UK phone numbers.
I would like to request Mr Nash or Mr Russell Brooker (London Office) to sell my graphene stock. Please note I’m not asking for any profits but simply my investment back even though if prices have gone done as I’m willing to cut my losses. Many Thanks