The FA of Fantasy Funds for Footballers

Dominic Thomas
Sept 2025 • 3 min read

The FA of Fantasy Funds for Footballers

I wonder if you know a professional footballer? Or perhaps you are one. Our offices are located opposite the Chelsea training ground in Cobham. As the season starts and the all important transfer window closes, a lot of money has changed hands (we have seen a new British record payment for a player – £125m for Alexander Isak) with over £3bn spent by the Premier League.

Professional footballers tend to be young, and with the odd exception like James Milner, most end their playing careers by age 35. Some go on to become pundits and coaches, occasionally a Manager.

Sadly, where there is money, there is corruption and I am sorry to report that football is no different. There are a significant number of Agents and villains all set to relieve the player of his money and of course there is plenty of pressure on players off the pitch to simply keep up the appearance of success.

Just like anyone else, young players (and old ones) are not sure who to trust when it comes their finances. Many have been ruined by bad advice or downright fraud. There are advisers who ‘specialise’ in providing advice to players, but this guarantees nothing, and if anything is probably a red flag. Many have lost millions of pounds in investment schemes that they didn’t understand and should never have been exposed to. They were young and not sophisticated investors (most people aren’t) and they have been scammed time and time again.

This isn’t new information, it’s been going on for years, but there is a new documentary on the BBC – which you can see on iPlayer as well – called The Story of the V11. Players get all sorts of abuse from the stands and in the media, but there is and has been a great deal of financial abuse. It is utterly disgraceful and inexcusable. Many of the players involved have lost everything (including their lives due to the perceived shame and resulting suicide). It is desperately sad and could have been avoided.

The main problem that most professional players face is a high income (which is taxed at 45%) and a celebrity lifestyle alongside little if any financial knowledge. So when you see vast sums of tax being taken from your payslip, it’s entirely understandable to ask the question: what can I do to reduce it? (as we all do). Footballers have a short career but usually a very normal life expectancy. However, there are firms of financial advisers that will always attempt to carve out a niche market and claim that they know what makes everyone in that niche tick … then they seek endorsement from others who are well known in the niche and who (by virtue of experience) imply that their recommendations can be trusted.

The reality is of course that everyone is different, we may share lots of similarities, but we are all different. The common ground we share is attempting to secure our own future for when we get sick and are unable to work or decide to retire and stop earning.

The only thing these players did wrong was to trust the wrong person, who financially abused them and sold them investments that were and are… a load of rubbish. The advisers concerned sold utterly awful ‘investments’ (honestly, they cannot really be called investments). The advisers earned huge commissions and pretended that the tax-incentivised schemes (film partnerships) were backed by the Government and were risk-free.

It is a desperately sad tale and I hope that they get justice and the ‘advisers’ concerned all go to prison. They have caused misery and hardship and all the ingredients for a painful existence. When people are victim to these sorts of fraud they often feel stupid; they are not; they were ripped off and taken advantage of by criminals and fraudsters under the guise of being a qualified financial adviser.

Your financial plan does not need to involve complex investments, irrespective of your level of wealth. Investing doesn’t need to be complicated; it’s about owning a diversified portfolio of real businesses that produce income from the profits they make. Some businesses fail, but owning them all in the way our clients do, means the risk is minimal – barring a world ending catastrophic event (at which point none of us will be worried about money).

A good financial plan reflects your aspirations; a great one expresses your values and is reviewed regularly and importantly, you should be able to see the valuation of your portfolio and have it verified by various properly regulated entities.

So, you may not be a footballer, but the issues are the same – trusting the person that is advising you about your money, which is your future. If you know a footballer (I spot many in the Cobham area) or someone who needs our help in providing impartial, transparent advice with clear fees and clear communications, by spreading the word about us you may not be simply saving them money, but perhaps saving their life.

It is my opinion that currently, the legal system, tax system and regulatory framework have all failed to help these players and it is a disgrace – another one.

Get in touch to find out more, share this with a friend.

Here is the link to the BBC documentary: Footballs Financial Shame

BACK TO ALL BLOGS

The FA of Fantasy Funds for FootballersJemima Thomas2025-09-05T11:27:28+01:00

The significance of your documents

Dominic Thomas
Aug 2025 • 4 min read

The significance of your documents

It ought to be obvious that trust is the ‘bar of entry’ when being a financial adviser, yet on an increasingly regular basis there are rather sad stories within our sector media about financial advisers who have committed fraud.

There may be a myriad of reasons that result in someone stealing your money, but whatever they are it’s obviously wrong. Stealing from you should be pretty difficult, granted I am well aware that I might call some investment companies and advice firms out for their excessive charges, but however much smoke and mirrors are used, it’s not stealing, that’s fairly typical ‘ripping off’ which is unpalatable and is often a reason why having been over-charged, many eventually realise and come to us so that we can sort it out for them, often saving thousands of pounds in the process.

One of the many safeguards we have is to use third party platforms. These act as investment administrators taking the deposits for new investments or the proceeds of existing ones. They also make the payments directly to your bank account. They issue the statements of investments and documents to support your HMRC self-assessment returns. To be blunt, I don’t know why more advisers don’t use them. They even link live valuations to our secure portal, which is a fuller, deeper version of their own (but only showing assets you hold on their platform).

Advice is highly regulated, some might say too much so, but in my world any and every investment or pension will have to produce a valuation statement at least once a year and ought to be producing contract notes showing sales or purchases (when you buy or sell an investment, or make a payment to your pension). These will normally be sent to you electronically these days, directly by the product provider or platform. You may need to login to their platform, but you will at least have an email advising you to do so. When they are not, alarm bells ought to be ringing.

In this digital age of ‘deepfake’, it is relatively easy to reproduce a document and therefore make something appear different from reality. It would appear that ‘adviser’ Lisa Campbell did precisely this, making up statements for investments that the investor thought were placed, when in reality funds had been sent to her. This is one reason why cheques or payments to us are only for our fees, not for your investments (it’s a safeguard).

Campbell, based not a million miles away in Hampshire, stole around £2.3m from her clients. Some of whom were friends and family. This happened over a 10 year period from 2013. She attempted to cover her tracks by also sending false documents and statements to our regulator the FCA. She was due in court in May. The FCA essentially removed her permissions two years ago, but had at the time rather underestimated the size of the fraud. Hopefully you don’t know anyone who was ‘advised’ by her through Campbell & Associates or Campbell & Raffle (perhaps an ironic name).

Only a few days later another, similar case was announced by the FCA. This time Kerry Nelson and Jacqueline Stephens of Nexus IFA were also charged with defrauding four clients of £2m between 2019 and 2023. Once again documents were forged and the money … well used to “fund a lavish lifestyle”.

As your adviser, we are copied in on correspondence to you by providers, not always, but most of the time. We do not receive statements to forward on to you. In the Campbell case, it seems that investors thought they held Bonds with a Bank; the Bonds never existed.

I suppose that for most investments, it would be a bit of a faff for an adviser to produce fake daily valuations; should you really want to see what your portfolio is worth today and tomorrow you can 24/7.

If you do come across people who you believe could benefit from our low-cost evidence-based investment solutions and impartial fee-based advice (some 13 years before it was compulsory) please do pass on our details. You may be saving your friend an awful lot of money and perhaps from financial ruin.

Reference:

FCA report: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-charges-hampshire-based-independent-financial-adviser-multiple-fraud-offences

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-charges-two-individuals-multiple-fraud-charges

BACK TO ALL BLOGS

The significance of your documentsJemima Thomas2025-08-21T15:40:33+01:00

The Rule of 72

Dominic Thomas
Dec 2024 • 2 min read

The Rule of 72

In the finance world we sometimes use the rule of 72, in truth it’s mainly for examination questions. The purpose of the rule is to establish how long it would take to double your money given a set investment return.

Those with a keen sense of maths will appreciate that returns are very rarely fixed, so the formula has limitations for real-life application.

So let’s take an example of a cash deposit paying 3% a year

72/3 = 24 (years)

An investment with a return of 9% a year would take 8 years (72/9 = 8).

As we enter 2025, those of you holding cash of £100,000 would need to wait until 2049 to see this become £200,000. For those investing and achieving 9% a year, your £100,000 becomes £200,000 in 2033 and £400,000 by 2041 and £800,000 by 2049.

Now for those of you working within financial services, or if you work for the FCA, I am not suggesting investments are 9% a year, this is merely designed to demonstrate the point of the maths and yes I am ignoring inflation. In this theoretical world with predictable results of compounding annual returns we might observe the values over time as shown below. The orange line being a 3% annual return and 9% being the blue line.

So whilst theoretical, there are obvious inferences. Investments offering low returns are often deemed as having less risk… but less risk of what? In the same way that higher returns are considered higher risk. For most people building wealth over time, holding too much in ‘low risk’ / low growth investments will have a detrimental effect over time.

So the questions you need to consider are the timeframe for your goals and how much you need to allocate towards growth (genuine growth assets).

BACK TO ALL BLOGS

The Rule of 72Jemima Thomas2025-01-21T15:53:23+00:00

The Money Fog

Dominic Thomas
Oct 2024 • 4 min read

The Money Fog

I came across a clip of an interview with female comedian Shappi Khorsandi who was talking about her struggle with money and the particular additional challenges that she faces due to ADHD. She described an inability to understand and manage her finances and whenever someone has attempted to help with explanations, it feels as though she is back in a maths lesson, where understanding and explanation rarely meet. Her ADHD meant then and now that her mind is spinning with distraction which removes the chance of any understanding.

This has resulted in Shappi facing financial problems and the preferred solution is to avoid thinking about it. This results in unopened letters and emails which leads to County Court Judgements and significant difficulties with any financial institution thereafter.

I don’t have ADHD, but I understand that it is a spectrum (like many things) and of course I also struggle to understand a lot of things … I acknowledge that this isn’t the same thing, but I simply wish to state that I understand at least some of the feelings around not understanding.

Unfortunately, the time in which we live means that understanding money is really very important in terms of basic living in both the present and the future. In truth, many of us struggle with numbers and financial concepts. Certainly, there will be people who struggle more than others, but it would seem to me that the financial sector has often deliberately made life more complex and full of jargon than it needs to be.

Shappi made the point that for a long time she didn’t know how to articulate the problem and the help that she needed. She struggles with the administration of her finances and understanding what she sees on a statement. I would argue that this is not exclusively a problem for people with ADHD, but for many people; and indeed as we age, our ability to cope with evolving technology and concepts becomes ever more challenging.

So my question in the thread and here to you, is on one level rather simple, but of course not a simple answer. What can we do to make managing your finances easier? How can we make things more straightforward? Given that we don’t wish to overreach our responsibility and remove any sense of your own agency from the dynamic – we cannot simply ‘do it all for you’, but I am certain that we can improve on what has gone before.

The FCA are aware of the problem, in many respects it is evident in their approach. At one level, they do not believe that most people can calculate 1% of a number, so advisers have to clearly state fees in cash terms not simply percentages. At its heart, the latest initiative Consumer Duty (which builds on the prior initiative of Treating Customers Fairly) is about this, but it’s still all about numbers and not really about helping people to build resources for their financial independence.

I would suggest, politely, that a lack of understanding combined with inertia are the real reasons why people don’t move their savings accounts to better rates of interest or invest cash that they are really very unlikely to need for five years or more. This is not helped by the reality that ‘advice’ comes with lengthy documentation and the litigious world in which we live means that those of us dispensing advice are caught between simplicity and detail for fear of claims in the future about “not understanding”.

Money is complex, partly because it can involve a lot of maths and formulae, but also because the jargon and terminology used make most of us shut down! There is also the very real problem that we are human, most of us are not really interested in money, but in what it can do for us. Having the self-awareness to appreciate that you don’t need to be an expert but need one; but not completing delegating decisions is a journey that you are on. I know it works, but I certainly recognise the size of the emotional step that you have taken, which is easier for some than others.

In this process, trust is obviously an enormous factor and it’s my belief that trust, whilst I can earn it by keeping promises, is at its core instinctual.

BACK TO ALL BLOGS

The Money FogJemima Thomas2025-01-28T10:02:51+00:00

EXISTING CUSTOMERS ARE “FLEECED”

TODAY’S BLOG

EXISTING CUSTOMER PENALTY

If you have ever found yourself screaming at the radio or television as an advert comes on about your existing insurer, finally it seems, your exasperation has been heard. Yes you were right, new customers were getting a better deal than you (on your home and car insurance). Perhaps on your banking or mortgage too.. but let’s park that for another time.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is bringing an end to the practice of car and home insurers charging loyal customers more than new customers. ‘Price walking’ – commonly known as the ‘loyalty penalty’ – is a pricing practice where existing customers are increasingly charged more, the longer they stay with the same insurer. If you have been a client for a while, you will have heard me mention “the inertia that financial services companies rely upon”. I normally make this comment in relation to someone that has not reviewed their pension or investments for a while, or taken an annuity from their pension company (now that doesnt happen as much these days).

Following a consultation launched in September 2020, the FCA has confirmed this unfair practice will be banned from 1 January 2022 – saving customers an estimated £4.2bn over 10 years. So, if you are a tad cynical like me, then we can look forward to adverts towards Christmas time that focus on the last hurrah of rip-off insurers…. of course I’d also suggest that we may all end up paying more.

NEW CUSTOMER DEALS FOR ALL…

Insurers will have to offer existing customers wanting to renew, a price that is no higher than they would pay as a new customer coming through the same ‘sales channel’. The ‘sales channel’ is just how you reached your insurer, which could be through their website, over the phone, through a comparison site or via a broker. These can all have an effect on the premium you pay and will continue to do so. So, for example, if you’re renewing over the phone, you’ll be offered the same price as a new customer switching to that insurer by phone.

There is of course a but… But this might be a higher premium than a new (or existing) customer taking out a policy online. If you really have the time to call a massive insurance company on the phone, they are likely to charge you more for the pure joy of the experience. As well as the new rules on pricing practices for home and motor insurance, the FCA is also bringing in new rules to make it easier to cancel the automatic renewal of their policy, which should make it easier to shop around. The pricing and auto-renewal changes will come into effect on 1 January 2022.

WANT MY ADVICE?

Well, do not waste your time with comparison websites. These are not whole of market and cheap is not necessarily best. This is insurance. You do not want it, but you need it and if you need to make a claim, you will want it paid out. So, use an insurance broker. Yes they will not be the cheapest option, but their real-life experience is…. priceless. They will get the most suitable arrangement from the market. If you do not have a broker, I can recommend one, who I have used for years – Richard Hiscox at 1StopInsurance. Put his details in your addressbook now or just call or email him to let him know your renewal dates.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

EXISTING CUSTOMERS ARE “FLEECED”Dominic2025-01-23T10:52:21+00:00

GOOD COP STORY

TODAY’S BLOG

GOOD COP STORY

Regulation is a good thing. There are a lot of crooks out there and when it comes to your money, there are loads of ways crooks seek to part you from it. I may get exasperated with the process, find the focus often in the wrong place, but I can assure you that regulation is not easy, there is legal due process. It could and should be easier.

Scams and financial crime, adviser firms ripping people off and going bust end up costing the remaining advisers a lot of money. We are the insurance, or a large part of it, stumping up funds in the form of regulatory fees and levies, which are now at such alarming levels, that there is genuine cause to pause and wonder if any financial adviser is actually sustainable.

So some good news of bad guys getting caught and the FCA able to now get on with their job. Long story short…

Lots of people were ripped off moving their pensions into a SIPP, (there is nothing wrong with a SIPP, but as ever, its about being in the wrong hands). Once the money was in the SIPP, it was invested into what I can only describe as joke/scam investments that promise high returns. They pander to those that don’t understand the stockmarket (or investing) as the “investments” are not listed on the stockmarket. Its junk, simple as that. The “adviser” charged multiple fees, all of which were almost certainly way above a typical adviser fee/charge. These sorts of “non-regulated” investment funds (I struggle to even call it a fund) tend to pay enormous commission (they are not regulated).

HANG ON DOMINIC, I HAVE A SIPP, SHOULD I WORRY?

Do we move pensions to SIPPs? Yes, often! Because they can be brilliant, cheap to run and offer a vast range of REGULATED retail funds for us to use to grow your money. Some are more expensive than others, but our job is to select one that is suitable for you (if it works, cost effective, value for money, provider financially robust etc). Our fee structure is easy to understand 1% a year.

What rip off advisers do is charge the SIPP all sorts of fees and pick “funds” (not regulated ones) that pay them additonal “fees” as well. The driving motivation is to fleece the investor, not to make good investment decisions, but to take as much money out of your pension for themselves. Let’s call a spade a spade.

TIME FOR A CELEBRATORY DRINK

I am delighted, with the news that these criminals have been caught! I may even pour myself a drink before noon to celebrate. Sadly, it will likely take years to attempt to get money back to investors, most of it won’t be returned, it will leave many in dire straits for their own retirement plans and all of them will understandably think all advisers are untrustworthy and so continue to perpetuate the story that investing is bad, advisers are bad, pensions are bad, the stockmarket is bad… yet it is precisely because they didnt use a proper adviser, or a proper investment that its ended up like this. Very sad, wont help encourage people to save, more likely to cause the reverse!

NOT SOPHISTICATED INVESTORS

Something like 2,000 investors were persuaded to move their pensions into a SIPP and then placed the money into “alternative assets” such as tree plantations, hot pods and property in Brazil. Something like £92m was moved into these “assets”. That’s actually a low average pension size of about £46,000 – so these 2,000 people hadn’t saved much either, it probably was their life savings in pensions. So, whilst I risk generalising, these are not sophisticated investors, they are precisely the opposite and less able to tell a investment duck from a swan.

There is more to it than this (see the links at the bottom) but suffice to say the FCA are now ready to deal with the company, its Directors and will attempt to get client money back. Here I have to admit to cynicism, as £92m will almost certainly never get returned, I imagine 10% of it is more likely. The Directors of Avacade and Alexandra Associates have already been ordered to pay £10.7m in restitution to investors (averaging £5,300 to each investor). Somehow I suspect to hear “ we don’t have the money, its been spent on legal fees, defending the indefensible, and a Ferrari or two…. Oh and the company is now bust”.

So if you have a friend that has ever had any contact with Alexandra Associates (UK) Ltd, or Avacade Future Solutions (AA) or Craig and Lee Lummis, please urge them to get in touch with the FCA. In truth you probably don’t, because £46,000 in a pension fund is not likely to be the sort of friend you have unless they are quite young.

Well done FCA, very glad to see another one caught. I do however wish you would name and shame the SIPP providers that not simply allowed, but facilitated this to happen.

EVIDENCE & LINKS

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

GOOD COP STORYDominic2023-12-01T12:13:04+00:00

ARE YOU BEING SCAMMED?

TODAY’S BLOG

ARE YOU BEING SCAMMED?

OK I admit that I am often sceptical about surveys, the sample sizes are often too small to infer anything of significance. However, in this instance, even if the survey is bogus it is certainly worth reminding you about scams – and something that you can and ought to pass on to your friends.

A survey for Liverpool Victoria (LV) found that about 14% of the adult population (about 7.6m adults) have been hit by a pension scam. Double this number were concerned that they might fall prey to a scam (a pension scam to be precise). Half admitted that scams were hard to spot and around 41% wanted help knowing how to do so and how to prevent being scammed.

WHY TARGET A PENSION?

Aside from your home, your pension is probably your largest or most valuable asset. Scammers know this, they also know that the majority of people don’t know much about pensions, find them very dull and full of jargon. They often don’t realise how much they are worth and rarely treat them as though they are the family heirlooms that they are.

As your adviser (if not yet, then get in touch) I have been explaining the importance and value of your pension for many years. You know that we focus on using the most modern pensions to take advantage of pension freedoms and evidence based low-cost investment strategies. It is your future source of income (or a current one) and may well be something you leave to your beneficiaries.

BEWARE THE FREE LUNCH (REVIEW)

However, for those that do not want an ongoing relationship with their adviser, minimising costs is a significant appeal, having a “free” pension review – well music to their ears rather than any recognition of alarm bells. For most of my working life financial advice has been generally touted as free. It isn’t, it never has been and that is frankly the biggest source of all the problems.

COLD CALLING

A friend of mine, Darren Cooke started a lobby in 2016 to end cold calling. Most advisers joined the movement which resulted in the banning of cold-calling about pensions from 2019. Yet it still happens. It is banned, but there you are.

PENSION LIBERATION

There is no such thing, unless you consider liberating your pension from you a form of liberation – I call it theft. You cannot access your pension before age 55 except for a very, very rare number of instances. Safer to assume you cannot.

Moving your pension to a SIPP (Self-Invested Personal Pension) is absolutely fine BUT only if you are using properly regulated funds within it. Not offshore weird stuff like teak farms or storage boxes, car parks or some other daft “asset” that I can actually set on fire.

NEW FREEDOMS, NEW TEMPTATIONS

Taking your pension is much easier than it used to be. There are new (2015) pension freedoms which have made pensions much better than they were. However, with greater freedom has come greater choice and increased responsibility – yours (and mine). A crook will exploit some basic knowledge (rules have changed) pander to misinformed opinions about stock markets “they are risky and lose you money” and will offer something that sounds altogether better – guarantees, no stock market involvement, high returns -much better than your cash and sometimes money now…. All for free.

Sadly, many do not remember the adage “if its too good to be true, it probably isn’t”, fewer still seek out a financial adviser and if they do, may well be befuddled by what restricted or independent means (invariably a restricted adviser will not mention it, even though they are meant to do so clearly). When a regulated adviser provides advice, he or she is liable for it. I can assure you that we take this very seriously as the liability rather unreasonably, extends beyond the grave.

HANG UP

If you have a friend that you think is being scammed or you are approached yourself, hang up the phone and get in touch with me. I have seen too many people get scammed for one lifetime. A good site to check out is the FCA SCAM SMART site.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

ARE YOU BEING SCAMMED?Dominic2023-12-01T12:13:05+00:00

AS SAFE AS HOUSES…

TODAY’S BLOG

AS SAFE AS HOUSES

I am not really sure what the reason is, but most people trust their own bank. I guess that a degree of trust has to be there in order for you to agree to bank with them. However, there is a huge amount of inertia when it comes to banking. I don’t know if it is still the case but not so long ago a bank customer was more likely to leave their marriage than the leave the bank.

On 8 July 2021 the regulator concluded yet another investigation and disciplinary action against the Bank with the horse (again). This is prone to jokes about stable doors and a few about the long face. This time house insurance sales. Those awkward hassle reminder letters that tell you its time to renew.

I’m stretching a little, but I am basing my own assumptions on the statements made by the FCA. Long story short, loyal customers were not getting deals they thought were good and there was never any real attempt to compare just how wonderful the cost of insurance was against others. This all happened a few years ago… back in 2017 the home insurance market of 18 million policies and 12.29% of those with Lloyds Bank General Insurance. I make that about 2.2m policies. The premiums paid to Lloyds amounted to a tidy £713m… so that’s an average premium of about £336.

BOLTING THE STABLE DOOR

In fairness to Lloyds they have already repaid customers £13.5m. The FCA have fined Lloyds £90,688,400 due to the misleading renewal and marketing literature, of which there were over 9m “renewal communications” between January 2009 and November 2017. So the problem went on for 8 years and its nearly 5 years after period concerned that a fine has been issued. There really is something about stables, horses and bolting here isn’t there?

Is it just me or is this about 2.2m polices sold each year since 2009… 12 years of premiums or about £8,556m for a £90m fine. It’s about 1% of premiums over those 12 years. Fair enough I am extrapolating the data, but I doubt its far off.

May I make a suggestion? Do not use your Bank for your insurance, or indeed anything other than banking. We see this sort of stuff on a regular basis, yet people remain loyal to their Banks. Use an insurance broker who will assess the market. I use Richard Hiscox at 1Stop. The main advantage is that price competition is part of the issue, the other is whether claims themselves ever get paid out easily with minimal fuss. This experience is something most of us have little of (thankfully) but an insurance broker sees this stuff every single week.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

AS SAFE AS HOUSES…Dominic2023-12-01T12:13:05+00:00

SCAMS AND GOOD LIARS

TODAY’S BLOG

SCAMS AND GOOD LIARS

Sadly, there are lots of ways to part you from your money. Unfortunately, the criminals are getting ever more sophisticated and we are all accustomed to being so overwhelmed by choice, that we often skip the task of reading the detail or asking more questions.

The problem is that when it comes to your money, you can lose quite a lot of it very quickly. Crooks rely on several things.

JARGON
PRESENTATION
FRUSTRATION
“PROOF”

JARGON

The financial services sector is full of jargon. We also often have multiple names or terms for the same thing – for example stocks, equities and shares are all the same thing. As for Bonds – let’s not even go there

PRESENTATION

In a world of low interest rates, where your hard-earned cash is going backwards in value because of inflation. If prices rise 3% and you only get 1% interest, you are falling behind inflation and the £ in your bank account cannot buy as much as it did. So being offered something that looks and sounds like a decent return, (particularly if it’s on a nice-looking website or advert) well nobody would honestly say you are being greedy. You just want to make your money work harder. However, the adage if it sounds too good to be true…

FRUSTRATION

You are fed up with jargon, bad interest rates and the news regularly reports that millions were wiped off the stock markets. Oddly they never report that millions were wiped on, at best the news may mention the FTSE100 is up by something every 15 minutes, which is utterly pointless. So something that offers “guarantees” or suggests that it has nothing to do with the stock market – perhaps investing in something that sounds green (and good) is likely to appeal to your sense of frustration.

“PROOF”

Having a celebrity promote the “investment” or business opportunity is designed to give it some credibility. After all, celebrities are nice people aren’t they? They have reputations to uphold. Well the truth is that actors are paid to speak words, sports professionals invariably are paid to have words written on them. However nice they may be, they are paid for their promotional work.

How about those reviews from previous customers? Those star ratings? Or industry awards? If you have been around long enough, you will know that whilst these can be true, they are often partially true and sometimes not true at all. As a business owner I am regularly offered awards or encouraged to do something to get them, such as join a trade body that gives the impression of some credibility, when all it really means is that it’s a marketing club

You are a target, nothing more

Scammers prey on those that have money but don’t have the time or perhaps knowledge to think through what it being proposed. They target anyone.

The Good Liar

The new film “The Good Liar” starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen, showcases a scammer, a pretty good one. I may have some issues with the speed and ease at which things purport to be done (establishing a Trust, combining the wealth of two people, and an oversized calculator keypad to confirm live payments for sums less than £100m) but the mechanics of a scam are all there.

You can attempt to keep up with scams on the FCA website here: Alternatively, please get in touch, if you have any doubt about what you are being told, it is worth getting us to have a look at it. How much are your life savings worth to you after all?

As for the film, I quite enjoyed it. I may think that popcorn and a drink borders on being a bit of a scam, but the movie is entertaining and just short of 2 hours. Longer than a sports match and more informative. Here is the trailer.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

SCAMS AND GOOD LIARSDominic2023-12-01T12:17:06+00:00

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS

TODAY’S BLOG

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS

If you believe much of the marketing spiel, it seems that in this life you have to become successful by becoming a celebrity. This isn’t necessarily famous, but well known within your specified field. Some call this personal branding and it’s the regular diet of entrepreneurial and self-improvement books and courses. I read a piece yesterday that resonated with me and debunked a lot of this twaddle.

It’s all Pants

What is certainly the case, is that many people will regard the opinions of others as evidence of credibility. “Celebrities” can certainly give added impetus to sales of products. Think David Beckham and underpants. It works, though I’m not sure who is kidding who when considering this particular example. I saw a video clip of a game show in which Gordon Ramsay posed a forfeit question to James Cordon “which of your endorsements have you never used?”. Forfeit taken, the money is presumably too good to forfeit with the truth.

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS - SOLOMONS IFA BLOG

By Association

Many people buy or are certainly helped to buy based on the reviews or recommendations of others. That’s basically Trip Advisors entire business model, and of course most online retailers seek reviews, constantly. Hands up, we also ask clients to provide testimonials, which is much the same thing… we simply don’t shape or lead them (so they are honest).

Big Noise, Big Bucks, Big Blindspot

When it comes to investing, celebrities are now to be found endorsing all sorts of financial products that they have no real understanding of. Remember the adverts releases for the failing Equitable Life and Buzz Aldrin was promoting them in 1998? Or Anthony Hopkins promoting Big Bank Barclays, these days a task left to Simon Cowell.

Crypto – never expect good things in the Crypt

The world of financial products has become ever more complex with the rise of cryptocurrency. That specific field is full of corruption and fraud. One might say, its a bit of a jungle our there. The regulator has reported a tripling of reported fraud in cryptocurrency and foreign currency, each “investor” losing an average of £14,600. In my opinion, this will only get worse. Much worse. As more people seek easy returns to prop up the dismal interest from cash, the temptation is to try something that appears to have done well. Having a celebrity endorsement will, sadly for many, end in tears. Money talks and it walks, there are multitudes of people that will attempt to part you from yours, which is why part of my role is to act as guardian or bouncer on the door to your financial planning.

If you know someone that is contemplating a new investment that sounds too good to be true, or you suspect as much, refer them to the FCA scam smart website here. To be blunt, when it comes to investing, seeing any form of “celebrity” endorsement ought to leave you agreeing with those that make “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here”… except think.. “that’s a celebrity, get me out of here”…

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTSDominic2023-12-01T12:17:25+00:00

12 Next