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Businessman Jailed For Conning Footballer  

A businessman from Doncaster has been jailed for eight and a half years for conning footballer Gary Cahill.

The Sun reported that Chelsea and England star Cahill, was conned out of £1 million by Stewart Groves who had offered the defender his services, but instead deposited the cash into his own bank accounts.

Stewart Groves has been disqualified for ten years after misappropriating £800,000 of one of his clients investments. At a crown court hearing, Groves was found guilty of fraud by misrepresentation and sentenced to 8 and a half years. Earlier this year, Lincoln County Court issued Groves … Read more

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2 Years for Illegal investment scheme

In a case bought by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”), Virdee was sentenced to 2 years in prison and ordered to carry out 300 hours unpaid community work. Virdee pleaded guilty to 4 charges relating to misleading consumers, fraud and, the illegal operation of an unauthorised investment scheme, which raked in over half a million pounds.

Virdee ran a company named Dynamic UK Trades Ltd and, between October 2015 and November 2017, he operated a deposit taking scheme without the required authorisation of the FCA. The FCA say he targeted family members and associates; in one instance he convinced … Read more

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Carphone Warehouse Fined £29 million

Dixons Carphone Warehouse has been handed a £29.1 million fine from the Financial Conduct Authority for mis-selling its Geek Squad service. The FCA said Carphone Warehouse trained its staff in ‘spin selling’ its Geek Squad policy to customers who already had insurance policies in place and didn’t need it.

The FCA started its investigation after whistleblowers reported the company were forcing staff to push the insurance and technical support product onto customers. They were trained to recommend Geek Squad to customers who already had phone cover. The FCA said staff were also trained in ‘Objection Handling’ of focusing on customer … Read more

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New Rules For Rent To Own Shops

The Financial Conduct Authority has announced it will limit the interest that customers pay on rent-to-own products. The FCA says that all goods purchased after 1 April will be included in the price cap. Meaning the interest charged will only be as much as the cost of the product, this includes the cost of credit.

Rent-to-own shops offer people the chance to buy items they need for their home through smaller regular payments. However, once interest charges have been added, some rent-to-own consumers have ended paying more than four times the retail price they would have paid in a non … Read more

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Do you have a PCP car finance agreement ?

The Financial Conduct Authority announced back in 2017 that they were investigating the motor financing industry, to ensure that consumers were not being caused harm, to understand how finance products were sold and, to see if the market is functioning as well as it could be. In March, the FCA published an update of this review, setting out the areas of concern that they have highlighted for further investigation. One of those areas is PCP or Personal Contract Purchase.

And finance experts are eagerly anticipating the publication of the FCA’s findings. If the FCA rule the sales processes employed … Read more

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Tesco Fined £16.4 Million Over Cyber Attack

The Financial Conduct Authority has handed down a massive fine to the supermarket bank following a cyber-attack In November 2016. The attack did not result in any theft or loss of personal customers data, but did lead to 34 transactions where funds were debited from personal accounts and millions were stolen.

Tesco bank is the financial arm of one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains and holds 5.6 million customer bank accounts.

The FCA says that Tesco failed to protect its customers and is holding the bank accountable for its lapse in risk management. This is the first time the … Read more

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Five Jailed For £2.8 Million Boiler Room Scam

Five men have been jailed for a total of nearly 18 years, following a criminal prosecution by the Financial Conduct Authority. They have been found guilty of scamming more than 170 victims out of £2.8 million, in a complex boiler room scam.

The judge said “Some victims lost everything they had” and “their stories were at times positively heart-breaking.” He added that elderly people had been specifically targeted.

The men worked in a boiler room, where they cold called victims and using high pressure sales tactics, sold worthless and overpriced investments to the public. The name boiler room refers to … Read more

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Couple Lose £272,000 as holiday home dream collapses !

Police have been called in to investigate after a couple from Bristol lose a holiday home and £272,000 in life savings, after the collapse of a £10 million foreign exchange firm. Civil servants, Bryn and Trish Pailing were fortunate enough to retire early and were about to complete the purchase of a dream home on Portugal’s Algarve coast.

It all began when the couple attended a ‘Place In The Sun’ exhibition in 2015 and met with Premier FX, who were sponsoring a Portuguese stand. They spoke with company representatives, who explained they acted as a foreign exchange company, that … Read more

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Azure Resorts, do you have a claim?

Praetorian Legal are representing a number of clients in relation to mis-sold timeshare contracts by Azure Resorts Ltd.

A number of our clients purchased timeshare products with Azure Resorts, which were funded by loan agreements arranged by the resort. The sales company which advised those clients to enter into sizeable and complex loan agreements was not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, rendering the loan agreements unenforceable.

Many clients were not provided the correct information when signing the loan agreements, some signed the contracts after enduring long, high-pressure and aggressive sales presentations. FCA guidelines are in place to ensure that … Read more

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HERITAGE RESORTS AND HOTELS, CLUB HERITAGE INTERNATIONAL, HERITAGE SALES LIMITED AND NORMAN ANDERSON TO BE INVESTIGATED BY THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY

Here at Praetorian Legal we represent many owners of holiday products with Heritage Resorts, whose main point of contact is a Mr Norman Anderson. In fact, Norman Anderson appears to be the only point of contact at Heritage Resorts.

Following on from our press release on the 17 November 2017, which can be seen here, we highlighted the way in which of Heritage Resorts and Norman Anderson operate.

A cursory search of the term ‘Norman Anderson Heritage Resorts’ in Google will provide an insight into the sort of man that Mr. Anderson is. He is often … Read more

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