Twisting the Truth

Welcome back to AIT after the bank holiday weekend, a weekend which saw many messages from regular readers regarding cold calls they have already received with the news that Barclay Partner Finance has agreed to settle loans brokered by Azure Services Ltd. It would appear the “vultures” are already circling.

As with any news whether it is a takeover such as Hilton and Diamond, a collaboration between Club la Costa and Wyndham, someone somewhere is going to use it and twist it to get your money.

With Hilton and Diamond, the sales agents in the US are having a field day on presentations with ingenious schemes and upgrades purely to get your money. Yet, once you fall for the scam and complain, you’re told in no uncertain terms “we are not responsible for what our sales agents say”. Luckily for Diamond members in Europe, there is a distinct lack of sales so, no upgrades are being sold, yet.

When Wyndham and CLC announced their collaboration, there was a spate of “cold calls” using the situation to “scare” people into paying for services they don’t need. Those seem to have ended rather abruptly.

We now see an increase in “cold calls” and “adverts” using the BPF agreement to refund all loans brokered by Azure (Malta) to all those who were part of the FCA Validation Order case. One Group, in particular, was very instrumental in achieving that result. It was also the largest group of references representing 69 members. The Group then continued to be part of the Upper Tribunal proceedings. The Group administrator posted the following information, with his permission we are publishing extracts of his post to members, who are all raising the same concerns on the news.

There are two groups, Azure Barclays Action Group and Azure Malta Action And Support Group, it is through the second group that much of the work has been done behind the scenes. The Group Administrator, Ivor Williams coordinated the campaign by the members to have this case recognised, he was assisted by many group members who volunteered their services. This is a fine example of doing the job yourself, congratulations to all of you.

“Following the group’s initial success with BPF loans within the validation order and BPF refunding them, the groups continued involvement with the Upper Tribunal proceedings and pressure on the FCA, Treasury Select Committee, HM Treasury, and members MP’s, BPF has decided to refund all loans for sales through Azure Services Limited.”.

“This means anyone who took out credit with BPF to finance a fraudulent represented investment from June 2006- late 2018 will receive a full refund plus interest.”.

As you can see, BPF has now included all those that are outside the validation order case and greatly increases the number of claims. However, this is where the problem is now beginning with the “cold calls”.

We know that the vast majority of these Azure clients are now elderly and it is they who are vulnerable to the deliberate scare tactics of the cold callers. We have already been told and seen written confirmation that this is a “Complicated Matter”, and legal representation is required if you don’t want to lose out.

This is also being used not just by the usual bogus suspects, but also by “Registered” law firms and lawyers.

The fact is, BPF and the FCA have confirmed that all clients will be contacted in due course, the client does not need to do anything let alone take on some dubious service. They also estimated that all refunds will be completed within 12 months.

Now considering that His Honour Judge Timothy Herington (pictured) has been heavily involved in the case, and is still keeping a beady eye on it, can you honestly see BPF not fulfilling their promise?

Another thing you will also find these “cold calls” have in common is the claim that they are the “law firm or claims company” that is behind it. Well, they may have had one or two clients, but that does not make them the be-all and end-all of “legal services”, there were many others involved.

AIT has also had it confirmed that BPF, the FCA and the FOS along with other authorities have already been informed of the calls and claims in adverts. Hopefully, they will confirm everything with a press release.

This once again only reinforces the point about information being manipulated to get your money, be it the sales agent at the presentation, the cold caller, or even a registered lawyer, check their wild claims before you do anything. Then ask yourself the most important question of all

HOW DID THEY GET MY DETAILS?

If you have a comment on this or any article, please use the comments for that page, if you have any questions or need further information, please use the details on our contact page and AIT will get back to you.

We hope you had a great weekend, Baby Dog was at his best, especially in this nighttime shot.