By Chris Lang
360 Invest Group was a scam company that sold carbon credits to retail investors. REDD-Monitor first wrote about the company in August 2013. 360 Invest Group targeted pensioners with high pressure sales. In 2016, I wrote two more posts featuring 360 Invest Group based on a series of emails between 360 Invest Group’s scammers and an unfortunate investor.
The scam involved several other companies, including solicitors Colemans-CTTS in Kingston upon Thames, Carbon-Ex in Luxembourg, and Carbon Expert in Marbella, Spain.
The carbon credits were hugely overpriced and investors lost their money.
The recovery room scam
Last week, REDD-Monitor was contacted by someone who bought carbon credits from 360 Invest Group. Let’s call him John Greene.
John told me that he had received a letter from a company called Global Capital Holdings. According to the letter, 360 Invest Group has “entered voluntary liquidation under the authority of the Insolvency Service and the High Court”.
As a result, investors could lose their “assets and funds”. Global Capital Holdings offers the opportunity to sell the carbon credits, allowing investors “the chance to redeem their full portfolio value”.
As John pointed out, this is a scam. He asked me to warn others about the scam.
So here’s the letter from Global Capital Holdings, followed by some of the red flags:
Dear Mr. Greene,
After a long, turbulent journey and ultimately due to the amount of uncertainty surrounding the carbon credit market, it is with regret that we write to inform you that 360 Invest Group have now entered voluntary liquidation under the authority of the Insolvency Service and the high court. This means that they are no longer in a position to act in any capacity as your carbon credit broker or to manage your carbon credit holdings.
Throughout their existence they did make it their ethos to provide unparalleled customer service to their investors, ensuring that profits were paid on time and portfolios where managed accordingly. this duty of care is something that we intend to continue despite their impending demise and therefore we are urging all existing clients who still hold portfolios under management with 360 Invest Group to contact us immediately in regards to redeeming any stagnant funds still held within the market.
The liquidation of 360 Invest Group will unfortunately affect all clients regardless of whether you invested as a private or corporate client.
We are aware that companies are currently contacting investor’s and offering them options to trade out of the market. Please be very careful and only deal with companies that are able to issue you with your URN (Unique reference number). We are giving clients the opportunity to sell their current carbon credit portfolio and allowing all clients the chance to redeem their full portfolio value including any profits made from the sale of assets.
Failure to act proactively will result in your portfolio and ultimately your finances dissolving with 360 Invest Group as a company when they go into official liquidation, resulting in a loss of assets and funds. If this applies to you please feel free to contact us on 0207 459 4063 in order to discuss your options.
Yours sincerely,
The red flags
Global Capital Holdings contacted John out of the blue. Global Capital Holdings did not cold call John, but they have cold called others, with similar recovery room scams. (Since January 2019, cold calling about pensions has been illegal in the UK.) The only way that Global Capital Holdings could have known that John had bought carbon credits from 360 Invest Group is because his name is on what the scammers call a “sucker list”. Scammers collect information about people who have been scammed and sell this information to other scammers.
Global Capital Holdings is not registered by the Financial Conduct Authority. On its website, the Financial Conduct Authority writes that, “We strongly suggest you avoid dealing with unauthorised firms.” That should be enough to persuade anyone not to have anything to do with Global Capital Holdings.
Global Capital Holdings’ website was registered (anonymously) in July 2019. The “About Us” part of the website tells us that, “We understand your needs”, but tells us nothing about the company, when it was formed, or who is behind it. Instead it states, “The highly specialised and experienced team at Global Capital Holdings offer an escrow service that ties in to a third-party transaction.”
A company called Global Capital Holdings was registered at Companies House in the UK in March 2017. According to the company’s accounts, “The principal activity of the company and group is that of buying and selling of real estate.” There is no mention of escrow services. It looks very much as if Global Capital Holdings is a clone.
The address given at the end of Global Capital Holdings’ letter, Tower 42, 25 Old Broad Street, Lime Street, London EC2N 1HT, is an address offered by Regus for virtual offices. Tower 42 is the third highest office building in London. Even if Global Capital Holdings did have an office in the building, it would not be easy to find.
There is no company called 360 Invest Group registered at Companies House. The company disappeared in 2012. There is no mention of 360 Invest Group on the Insolvency Service’s website. A search for “360 Invest Group” and Insolvency Service, reveals nothing. Neither does a search for “360 Invest Group” and liquidation. In other words, 360 Invest Group going into liquidation is a figment of Global Capital Holdings’ imagination.
The website Safe or Scam includes a scam alert about Global Capital Holdings. Safe or Scam has posted a very similar letter to the one above, but targeting investors in Essex and London Properties LP, “a bogus property investment bond which collapsed two years ago and has been subject to UK police investigation”.
A search for the phone number that Global Capital Holdings gives (0207459 4063) reveals that it also belongs to a company called Herald Investment Trust. The company’s website offers up the usual boiler room nonsense. Like this: “Herald Investment Trust serves it’s [sic] client’s [sic] as a boutique Investment Management company, based in London.” The company’s website was registered (anonymously) in July 2019.
There is a real investment company called Herald Investment Trust. That company was registered in December 1993. The fake Herald Investment Trust is cloning this company. On its website, the real Herald Investment Trust has this scam warning, issued on 28 August 2019:
This scam has been going on for some time. In November 2017, “David Walker” left a comment on REDD-Monitor, saying he’d been contacted by someone from Herald Investment Trust. I pointed out that he wasn’t actually from Herald Investment Trust and that it was it was a scammer running a recovery room.
If you are contacted by Global Capital Holdings or Herald Investment Trust (or any other company that claims to be able to sell the carbon credits that you were scammed into buying as an investment) please report them to Action Fraud, and the Financial Conduct Authority. Do not send them any money under any circumstances.
DIRTY SCUMBAGS!!!
They have contacted me about the above. I am now being contacted by another company claiming to be working with global capital on my sale of my carbon credits. I have told both companies I know that it is all just a scam this second company, London capital holdings is still continuing to contact me. Apparently calling me again tomorrow to discuss my sale as if I wish to cancel I have to pay a cancellation fee
@Mary – Thanks for this comment. You’re right – it is a scam. Please report all this to Action Fraud and the Financial Conduct Authority.
Your warning about the scam being perpetrated by Global Capital Holding is very accurate. I am afraid that they caught me with a letter which in general was exactly as the facsimile that you printed the only difference was the name of the company from which they claimed to be able to recover money, In my case it was ‘Imperial Wines of London’ I do so wish that I had been able to read your warning earlier. Many thanks for your warning.
Be careful with calls from other companies. Since my letter and dealings with global capital I have had 3 more phone calls in the last week. Company called city capital holdings, London capital holdings and city capital markets. It was the same gentleman from city capital holdings and London capital holdings but he tried to give me a different name. First call was from London and his name was Andrew, second city and his name was Charles. I said to him he should maybe try and change his voice slightly if he is going to try and pull that one. I have reported global capital holdings so they are being investigated. You should maybe do the same , there may something you can do to get some money back if you have gave them any. Horrible horrible people in this world. I always check a company out online, you have to these days
I have been approached by Global Capital Holdings about wine I had with Imperial Wines of London saying they are acting as liquidators. They wanted £2000 up front this is when alarm bells rang.
This may be a new scam they are running
above letters re. global & Imperial wines sadly I did not read these until I wasted a lot of money on them.FINAL demand for money will not be paid to them
Please don’t have any contact with this company re liquidating trading accounts/ acting as escrow accounts /Cysec escrow transfers..they are operating within a huge international organised crime scamming ring. Very persuasive, able to forge bank statements. Stay away from them and anyone else who tries to intermediate. There must be big money being made in fraud these days and they seem to be getting away with it. Please put it out there naming all the Con Companies so that others can find these warnings!! I don’t know how they sleep at night bleeding those that can least afford it!!
These people are very persistent and annoying. Even if I tell them I’m not interested they keep calling. British guy representing a firm called Global Capital. Phone numbers change. Sometimes they are calling from Spain or Belgium and another number starting with +126.