Heatable solar review: the top installer for high-end panels
If you're interested in generating your own low-cost solar power and ready to choose an installer to fit your panels and connect them to your home, this guide is for you.
There are around 4,000 solar installers in the UK, which means you have a wealth of choice, but it can also be a challenge to navigate. Most solar panel installers operate regionally, which can help limit your options depending on your location.
We compared the cost of solar panels, warranty, and customer satisfaction to choose the best solar panel installers in the UK. If access to high-end panels or cutting-edge technology is your top priority, Heatable solar may be the right choice.
Why choose Heatable?
Price per installed kilowatt on a standard house: A typical array of 7kW would cost £900 - £1000 per kW
With a battery pack: £1400-£1500
Guarantee length: 2 years workmanship warranty
Area covered: Mainland England, Scotland & Wales
Typical time from inquiry to installation: 2-3 weeks from network operator approval
Founded: 2017
Heatable distinguishes itself by having exclusive access to high-quality REA Fusion2 solar panels, which are among the most efficient and durable models you can buy. These top-tier panels are engineered in Australia and are designed for maximum longevity and energy generation – even in lower light conditions.
Heatable is a Tesla Premium Partner for battery systems and has been endorsed by Which? for both solar and heating services.
The company said its quotes are fixed, with any additional costs such as unforeseen structural issues or existing electrical faults being picked up in the survey they perform before beginning work.
Heatable also has one of the best online review scores, with an aggregate score of 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot.
Customers praise the company's professionalism, ability to work with older properties, and strong post-installation support.
Heatable's website includes a helpful online planning tool that uses satellite imagery to estimate how many panels your roof can hold and how much power they could generate.
We found this quite easy to use and it gave a very good indication of what a solar array would look like.
REA panels, which are one of our top choices for solar panels, use micro inverters fitted to each panel. Inverters turn the direct current which the panels provide into alternating current that your home ring main uses. So unlike systems that rely on a single inverter, these microinverters convert direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) individually. This means better performance in low-light conditions and improved reliability: if one inverter fails, the rest continue to operate.
What's more, the micro inverters also benefit from the same guarantee the panels get – 25 years.
The panels are double sided, meaning sunlight can be absorbed on both sides. When it will be fitted to your roof, why bother? Well, some light will pass through the panel, reflect off your roof and enter through the back. Panels with this feature can generate up to 20 per cent more energy.
Engineered in Australia, the manufacturers say these cells are built to last and they top our chart for efficiency and degradation.
They also have a minimalist all-black design, which is useful if you want to keep your solar installation low-profile.
REA says its cells also have separate zones which mean that less power is lost should part of the array end up in the shade from trees, clouds or other buildings. And they make use of lower AC voltage for safety reasons.
While Heatable solar panels are more expensive than some alternatives, the technology and efficiency may justify the price for customers who want the best performance and longevity from their solar investment.
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The Guardian
17 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Not so Totally Rad: the UK music tuition firm leaving pupils in the lurch and teachers in despair
In April 2024, Hannah, a teacher in a Kent primary school where she is in charge of music, thought she had successfully set up weekly drum lessons for around 10 children. She had found a company to provide them: Totally Rad, based in the West Midlands. Totally Rad Hub is one of the big players in a part of the education economy that has boomed as public funding for music in state schools has been squeezed: private companies that supply freelance instrument teachers. The company says it has a network of 200 freelance tutors providing instrument lessons to about 300 schools and 5,000 families. It offers one-to-one tuition delivered in either 15-, 20- or 30-minute lessons, charging parents prices equivalent to £40 an hour (excluding VAT). It's a lucrative business: Totally Rad's income from schools was projected to surpass £1m in 2024. But according to the company's promotional material, Totally Rad's mission is all about the music. Because it is run by musicians, the company says it understands 'the challenges of developing musical skills and pursuing dreams'. It promises 'experienced teachers'. Its corporate communication style is chirpy and upbeat: one of its favoured catchphrases is 'You're awesome. We're RAD'. At Hannah's school, the experience didn't quite match that hype. A drum kit from Totally Rad duly arrived and all the kids who had signed up had a first lesson from their new drum tutor. But on the second week he didn't show up. Totally Rad hadn't supplied Hannah with a phone number and she couldn't find one online, so she asked why he had been absent using an email address she had been given. She got a reply four days later saying there had apparently been a 'personal emergency'. The tutor returned for two more sessions but then disappeared again. The first explanation the company offered put his absence down to 'unforeseen circumstances', which was followed by news that his commute to the school had proved to be financially unviable. 'He did three lots of lessons and that was him done,' Hannah said. Totally Rad said lessons were now 'on hold' and assured her it was trying to find a replacement. Wendy Hollands' son Riley was then eight years old and had been thrilled that his mum had signed him up for drum lessons (he is a massive Pink Floyd fan, she says). 'Each week he came home and I said to him: 'How was drumming?' He was like, 'I didn't go again – they didn't get me.' He was missing it,' Hollands said. Riley is awaiting an autism and ADHD diagnosis. 'He was coming home and taking it out on us because he wasn't doing the drumming.' Back at the school, Hannah had also been waiting for a Totally Rad singing teacher since April. One finally turned up in early June but only provided one day of lessons. The school were told this was due to a bereavement. The seeming lack of reliability was one thing but by now the parents she was dealing with had another very glaring grievance: they had paid upfront for drumming and singing lessons that hadn't happened. Hannah said she contacted Totally Rad with a clear instruction: 'You have to tell our parents that this is not happening and refund them immediately.' But that 'took months and months and months', she said. No more singing lessons ever happened. In September last year, Totally Rad finally sent the school a drum teacher. That lasted two months before the new teacher told Hannah he was leaving Totally Rad. The school, and its children, were once more in limbo. At this point Hannah decided to quit using Totally Rad. The company initially met her suggestion that their contractual arrangement should end in February 2025 with an insistence that it should carry on until Easter (at one point, Totally Rad recommended that the school hire independent legal advice to try to resolve this), and insisted it could fill the resulting gap with yet another drum teacher. But no one ever came. By the spring of 2025, though Totally Rad had not come to collect its drum kit, Hannah was confident she would not have to deal with the company ever again and that the issues with families' money had been resolved. But in June she was contacted by around 10 parents who had either suddenly had money taken from their accounts by Totally Rad or been notified that it was attempting to do so. The company later told her that some of the invoices it demanded payment for 'were raised in error', but 'in some instances they related to underpayments from parents during the period when lessons were active'. It offered no explanation of why it had suddenly contacted parents six months after its lessons had ended. One of these parents was Hollands. 'I emailed them,' she said. 'I was like: 'Is there a reason I'm being charged again when my son's lessons are no longer with you?' They didn't respond. And they tried taking more payments the following days – three times. They eventually replied. They tried telling me that I was overdue a balance from December, six months beforehand – but when I checked my Totally Rad account, it said 'paid'.' Totally Rad said there was an unresolved balance in the account which triggered the automated payment system to issue a payment reminder. Once the company was alerted, the invoice was voided and no payment taken. They denied the allegation that there were multiple requests for payment. Totally Rad said the cancellation of sessions was 'regrettable' and that any lessons that do not take place are not chargeable but do remain credited on an account for future sessions. It denied threatening the school with legal action and said it simply reminded the school of its contractual obligations. Totally Rad said it agreed to terminate its working relationship with the school with no financial penalty. It said this was a gesture of goodwill. These answers and claims from the company arrived in my inbox a fortnight ago. But at around the same time it became aware that the Guardian was investigating its affairs, Totally Rad seems to have started a comprehensive rebranding exercise. The Totally Rad Hub website has now been cleared of all content, and brings up a single message: 'This site is restricted and not publicly accessible.' At the time of writing, a Totally Rad website that recruits new freelance teachers is still live. There were residual traces of the company's old corporate identity on YouTube. But it seems the people involved want to somehow move on. Many of the parents and teachers I have spoken to , by contrast, feel that Totally Rad still needs to be held accountable for a long list of failures. I first encountered Totally Rad in March this year. Until the end of the recent summer term, my son James went to an autism specialist school in Somerset called the Mendip school, and like many autistic people he is extremely musical. He told me he wanted to learn the piano, and when the school said it had arranged for Totally Rad to deliver its services, I provisionally signed him up. Because of his autism, James has a singular learning style, and teaching him is best done by someone who understands neurodivergence. If things go wrong, it can poison his interest in whatever he is learning. So I emailed Totally Rad with a reasonable request: could I speak to the tutor involved? Two days later, I got an answer: 'We don't have a phone number to be contacted on but we are more than happy to discuss any of your concerns.' So I asked again: could the tutor who would be working with James call me? 'We are happy to pass on any information to our teacher you may have,' said the reply. After more back-and-forth exchanges, I then received an email suddenly agreeing that 'speaking with the teacher in advance' was in fact a 'vital part' of 'every child receiving the support they need to learn in a way that works best for them'. But by then I was fearing the worst. 'I'll leave it,' I said. Totally Rad says there is a phone line available for teachers and tutors and schools, but not for the parents of the children being taught. The company communicates with parents via a secure messaging platform called Intercom. This, it said, was for safeguarding reasons. What happened next echoes the experiences of many of the parents I have spoken to. Over 17 days, I was sent 24 text messages – sometimes at the rate of two a day, at completely random times – demanding money for lessons I had not agreed to (at one point, the fee went up from £78 to £120.90) and that were not going to happen. Totally Rad said these messages were from an automated system and related to amounts I would have owed had the lessons taken place. It voided my invoice, it said, as a gesture of goodwill. I later discovered what had happened after Totally Rad sent a teacher to the Mendip school, in a long conversation with the school's spokesperson. 'It was 16 May, which was a Friday, when we had the first lesson,' he said. 'They sent this chap out … and I said: 'What experience have you had working with children with special needs?' He said: 'I actually only found out it was a special school when I Googled it myself.'' As far as the school understands, the teacher had done this the night before he turned up. He was scheduled to teach 14 autistic children. 'I said: 'How much music teaching have you done?',' the school spokesperson said. 'He said: 'This is my first day. I've never taught music before.' He said to get the job he had had to send Totally Rad a video of him playing the guitar. His words were: 'I think they just wanted somebody in the job quick, so they hired me within about three weeks.'' He was also scheduled to teach the piano, which he said he could play 'a bit'. Fearing things might go badly wrong, a full-time teacher had to sit in on the first lessons and leave his class of nine-, 10- and 11-year-olds in the hands of support staff. 'It very quickly became apparent that the Totally Rad teacher was just out of his depth,' the spokesperson told me. 'He didn't really know how to handle our children. There was none of the animation you'd need to get children excited. There was just nothing. 'I have no issues with this lad – I mean, he really did try his best. But he shouldn't have been placed in that position.' The school sent its first email alerting Totally Rad to serious concerns and raising the prospect of cancelling its arrangement on 16 May and received no replies, aside from a suggestion to try a different email address, and a claim – on 13 June – that the member of staff who could deal with this would be 'returning shortly from annual leave'. By the start of July – six weeks after the first teacher had turned up – the Mendip school had still received no acknowledgment of its problems. The staff concerned made their grievances plain: 'As a school, we are appalled with our experience with Totally Rad, from sending an individual who is unqualified to teach music, particularly to students with additional learning needs. Perhaps more upsetting, however, is the way in which your company has hounded our parents for payments, sending multiple emails and messages each day.' Totally Rad did not address the fact that its tutor did not know he was teaching autistic children and had never done so. It did say that suggestions a tutor was simply thrown in without verified checks on quality or suitability were 'unfounded' and misrepresented its recruitment process. That process, it said, includes a performance video and interview, with responses assessed against an internal scoring system. The school also raised another issue: 'There are parents who have unknowingly paid for music lessons for September who have since rung to request a refund, only to be told [by Totally Rad] that these lessons will be taking place. They will not.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Because of the contract it signed with Totally Rad, at the end of the recent summer term the Mendip school was still hosting lessons provided by the teacher it was sent. Teaching assistants have to be present in all of them. Two weeks ago, the school sent the company an email repeating the fact that it wanted to cancel its contract and informing it that a member of staff was speaking to the Guardian. A reply came back within an hour, along with confirmation that the contract would be ended. In researching the company, my attention was quickly drawn to a fascinating subplot in the story of Totally Rad on the consumer reviews website TrustPilot. In early June, when I read some profoundly negative descriptions of the company's services posted on there (there are 43 one-star reviews, out of a total of 51), I posted my own. I mentioned some of my experiences and explained that I would soon be writing this article. At around the same time, the Totally Rad branding on the relevant page of that website suddenly changed to that of 'Winston Farriers', a horse-riding company of which I could find no record. There was also a review credited to 'Anon' enthusing about 'a five-star experience from start to finish', in which the staff had 'matched each rider to the right horse, and kept the pace right for everyone'. For a while, these changes meant any Trustpilot user had to scroll down to find any mention of Totally Rad's music tuition. A spokesperson for Trustpilot told me this change happened when the owner of Totally Rad registered with the website decided to 'claim' its profile, a change that lets companies reply to their reviews. 'We were informed by a whistleblower report that the business had changed the name of the profile to a domain not associated with the company,' he said. 'Once this was confirmed by our internal teams, we changed it back to the original name and sent an educational message as part of our enforcement process, which was acknowledged by the business owner.' The rebranding has been reversed and the horse-riding review has disappeared. Totally Rad's lawyers told us 'our client has no understanding of why the page was temporarily changed', and that some of the reviews on Trustpilot were not reflective of their customer base. A spokesperson from Trustpilot confirmed that changes on the company profile were actioned by a user using a Totally Rad Music business email address. Totally Rad has threatened at least two people who have posted reviews on Trustpilot with legal action. One is Hannah, the teacher in Kent. In June, she posted a negative review on the website. She then received two emails from Totally Rad's 'operations director', Josh Hall. The first said: 'I've been alerted to a public review containing defamatory claims which appears to align with your first name,' and asked for confirmation that she had written it. The second was legal. It said her review was 'demonstrably false and malicious in nature' and threatened her with legal action under the Defamation Act 2013. As a result, Hannah spoke to me for this article under a pseudonym, and the school has declined to be named. Samuel Morgan was willing to speak to me on the record. He is a self-employed music tutor based in London, and one of several former Totally Rad tutors I spoke to, all of whom talked about late payments and poor communication; two of them have resorted to legal action to try to secure money the company owes them. Morgan is a drummer. To demonstrate his skills, he had sent the company a video of him playing Starless, by the 1970s prog-rock band King Crimson. But he says he was not asked any meaningful questions about his aptitude for teaching. 'There was nothing like that,' he said. He also agreed to teach guitar and piano. 'It was the first proper job I'd had after leaving uni,' he said. Totally Rad said he would be paid around four weeks after each working month had come to an end: for September, he was told, he'd be paid at the end of October. 'But they were terrible at communicating,' he claims. 'The first story that was spun to me was maybe two weeks after my invoice was overdue. They said: 'Can you amend some things on your invoice?' Another few weeks went by. I was sending emails like: 'Just checking – are there any issues here?' And then the finance manager said: 'Sorry there have been delays, we've been switching over to a new payment system. We'll get you paid shortly.'' By now it was 'well into November'. He was finally paid for the work he had done in September after getting help from the Musicians' Union. By then he had decided to stop working for Totally Rad. 'When I handed in my notice, that's when they started being ridiculously difficult with payments,' he claimed. 'I had to pay my rent. I was having to borrow money off people. It was a miserable Christmas because of that.' He finally got paid for his work in October at the end of December, but then he began chasing Totally Rad for another two months' worth of fees that had not been paid. 'I remember sending emails with links to songs with money in the title: Money, by Pink Floyd, and Money For Nothing, by Dire Straits,' he said. His outstanding invoices were finally paid in February this year. Totally Rad said each candidate was put through a detailed and structured selection process, including a video performance and an interview. It said invoices were paid within 30 days of receiving correct invoices, and that it was within its right to delay payment until accurate invoices were received. The Musicians' Union's recommended hourly rate for instrument teachers who work in schools is £44 an hour. Its national organiser for education, Chris Walters, says the union has been concerned about privately run music tuition services for about a decade, but issues about the way they operate have noticeably intensified over the past few years. 'If schools lack confidence and knowledge in music, they see these companies as a great solution,' he said. 'And so the door's wide open for people to come in who are actually offering a substandard product. And that includes the way that they treat their teachers and the way they prepare them to go into schools.' This is, at least in part, yet another story about the long shadow cast by austerity. A big factor in the rise of such companies, Walters said, had been a post-2012 funding freeze for music hubs: local organisations that are meant to coordinate music teaching in state schools, with finance provided by the Department for Education. Their financial problems have been reflected in a decline in instrument teaching, and a sense that much of what remains is delivered on a hand-to-mouth basis. In October last year, Totally Rad announced it had secured £100,000 in debt finance – from public money – from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II, a scheme overseen by the state-owned British Business Bank. Those funds, Totally Rad said, would partly be used to support the development of a new online platform, which would 'complement the existing service by enabling pupils to continue lessons during the school holidays or allow those in rural areas to access lessons when there are no local teachers available'. Meanwhile, there are people with grievances all over the country. Beccy Marshall lives in Saddleworth, in Greater Manchester. Last autumn, her daughter said she was interested in Totally Rad drum tuition at her school, but then she changed her mind. Her mum cancelled the lessons that had been planned. 'But she came home from school and said they'd pulled her into a drumming lesson,' Marshall said. 'I was really annoyed. I thought: 'You've not had my consent to do that.' I'd cancelled it. But Totally Rad then hounded me. And honestly, it made me ill. 'It was constant texts, constant emails, and I kept trying to contact them to say 'I cancelled this, I don't want the lessons'. And the only time they would reply would be to say: 'You didn't cancel it'. I was sending them screenshots to say: 'Look I've got this to show you I have cancelled it.' And they would just keep hounding me for this money. The money was going up as well, they were putting charges on it, late payment fees. 'I think I even said in one of my messages: 'You are just a music provider to schools. My bank doesn't hound me like this.'' In most of what she says, there is a familiar element of so many accounts of dealing with Totally Rad: a kind of grim amazement that something as simple – and potentially life-changing – as teaching music to children could be so fraught with difficulty and bad feeling. 'It was bonkers,' she said. 'Bonkers.' Totally Rad says bill payers are liable to pay for sessions unless cancelled in advance in writing, otherwise automated reminders are sent out until the issue is resolved. In many cases we have reported on, Totally Rad has agreed to cancel outstanding payments for lessons which have not yet happened. This, it said, was done out of good will. Totally Rad said it had attempted to deal with all issues raised in this article, many of which were caused by circumstances outside its control, in a professional and timely manner. It also said the business had supported schools, donated free instruments and provided lessons and opportunities for children from all backgrounds. Its lawyers, Taylor Hampton, said the allegations in this article 'are not only inaccurate, they are also defamatory of our client'. This language closely mirrors that used in letters sent by Totally Rad to tutors and teachers, whose pupils have just wanted to learn to play music.
Telegraph
17 minutes ago
- Telegraph
North Korea accused of £17m crypto heist that killed British start-up
North Korean hackers have been accused of a £17m Bitcoin heist that brought down a UK-based cryptocurrency company. Lazarus, the hermit kingdom's notorious cyber gang, has been identified as the potential culprit behind the theft of cryptocurrency from Lykke, a trading platform incorporated in Britain. If confirmed, it would be North Korea's biggest-known cryptocurrency heist to target Britain. The pariah state has made billions in recent years stealing cryptocurrency to fund its military and nuclear programmes. Lykke was founded in 2015 and operated from Switzerland but was registered in the UK. The company said last year that it had lost $22.8m (£16.8m) in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies, forcing it to halt operations. In March a judge ordered the company to be liquidated after a legal campaign from more than 70 affected users. North Korea was named as the potential hacker in a recent report by the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), a branch of the Treasury. 'The attack has been attributed to malicious Democratic People's Republic of Korea cyberactors, who stole funds on both the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks,' it said. The Treasury said the OFSI did not reveal the sources of its information but that it worked closely with law enforcement. Lazarus had been separately blamed for the attack on Lykke by Whitestream, an Israeli cryptocurrency research company. It said the attackers had laundered the stolen funds through two other cryptocurrency companies notorious for allowing users to hide their tracks, and thus avoid money-laundering controls. Other researchers have disagreed with the conclusions, saying it is not currently possible to determine who hacked the exchange. Lykke was founded by Richard Olsen, a great-grandson of the Swiss banking patriarch Julius Baer, and offered cryptocurrency trading without transaction fees. The company was run out of Zug in Switzerland's so-called 'crypto valley' but its corporate entity was registered in Britain. In 2023, the Financial Conduct Authority issued a warning about the company, saying it was not registered or authorised to offer financial services for consumers in Britain. Despite saying it would be able to return customers' funds, it froze trading after the hack and officially shut down last December. The company was liquidated in March following a winding up petition in the UK courts brought by a group of customers, who say they have lost £5.7m as a result of the company shutting down. Interpath Advisory has been appointed to distribute the remaining funds to those who lost money. Its Swiss parent was placed into liquidation last year.
Daily Mail
17 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Deepfake of fund manager Anthony Bolton could savage your savings in 'pump and dump' shares scam
When an advert that appeared to feature star fund manager Anthony Bolton appeared on Abbie's Instagram feed, it immediately piqued her interest. The ad promised stock tips and information from what seemed to be a credible source. It contained a video in which the former Fidelity International fund manager appears to tell viewers: 'I set up a WhatsApp investment group, every day I will share three stocks and the latest investment news… my goal is to help more investors.' Abbie, 28, from London, ignored it at first. 'But after a few days of being bombarded with the same ad, I decided to click on it,' she says. She had recently received a six-figure inheritance from her grandfather and was looking for somewhere to invest it. After clicking on the advert, there was a link to join a WhatsApp group. Once in the group, she found a handful of members who appeared to be potential investors like herself, alongside experts sharing stock tips. Members were told they could use their own investment platform to buy the recommended stocks and there would be no fee for the advice. The first stock the experts were talking about was Pheton Holdings (PTHL). This is a real company based in China, which was founded in 1998. It develops healthcare solutions for brachytherapy – a type of radiotherapy – and was listed on the US Nasdaq stock exchange in 2022. Abbie was unconvinced by its potential. But the WhatsApp experts kept telling the group that Pheton was on the verge of being acquired by pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, which could see its share price soar. All the while, Pheton's share price continued to rise, until after three weeks it had tripled in value to reach $18. Abbie was told it would keep rising to $45. 'I thought, there's literally proof in front of my eyes that it is going up, so am I missing out on something?' she says. She gave in to the pressure and bought shares using trading platform Robinhood. The experts in the WhatsApp group also looked legitimate. Their names and headshots matched those of employees of genuine US firm Denver Wealth Management. There were also 'broker assistants' in the WhatsApp group who appeared to be women with professional-looking photographs, with names such as Melissa, Gwen, Olivia and Belle. At first Abbie invested around £7,500, but continued to buy more shares as Pheton kept rising. 'I kept adding more money into it because the 'experts' in the group were so convincing and partly because of the stupidity that comes when you see that you can make a lot of money really quickly,' she says. 'It gets in your head, and you think: I can pay off my partner's student debt and I can pay for our wedding. You make plans in your head. 'I'm a very rational person, and I think I lost that.' Over three weeks, Abbie invested £45,000. Then, suddenly, once the shares ticked over $30 each, their value plunged. In just a matter of minutes they dropped to $1.65 and the value of the company crashed from over $440million to just $23million. Shareholders around the world lost money in the blink of an eye. But at the same time a group of anonymous scammers – likely members of organised criminal gangs – became very rich. That is because the advert that Abbie saw on Instagram was not genuine at all. Scammers had used so-called AI deepfake technology to create a video of Anthony Bolton speaking, when in fact he had nothing to do with the advert at all and had never spoken those words in his life. I'm embarrassed at how stupid I was – I should have recognised the signs, and I should have known better Abbie The sophisticated new technology allows scammers to generate fake video and audio of a real person speaking to make them appear to say things they haven't said. The WhatsApp group was run by scammers, who tricked unsuspecting victims to invest in companies to drive up their share price. They were using the names and profile pictures of genuine people to give themselves an air of legitimacy – without their knowledge or permission. Known as a 'pump and dump' scam, fraudsters artificially inflated the value of Pheton Holdings by investing in it themselves, promoting it to unsuspecting investors and sharing false information about it. Once the share price soars, the scammers sell their own shares for a significant profit, leaving those still holding shares nursing heavy losses. Six months ago, average daily trading volumes for Pheton averaged in the tens of thousands. In the weeks leading up to the 'dump' they rocketed into the millions. Abbie's partner also invested £3,000 in the company, and she had told her parents to do so too, but fortunately they chose not to. 'I have a deep feeling of shame,' says Abbie. 'People who trusted me, listened to me and thought that I knew what I was doing, took or nearly took my advice,' says Abbie. 'I'm embarrassed at how stupid I was – I should have recognised the signs, and I should have known better. 'I hope I can put it behind me, but it will take months, if not years.' The Mail on Sunday has identified at least 81 victims of the scam worldwide, but the actual number of victims is likely to reach into the thousands. One is a professional investment analyst who lost over £13,000. The online scammers were so convincing that they managed to fool him despite his expertise. Fidelity International – and other investment giants – put out warnings about it. When logging on to Fidelity's investments and pensions platform recently, it had a red alert stating: 'Fraudsters are increasingly using deepfake technology to carry out sophisticated scams. 'Some of the world's most high- profile investors, including former Fidelity fund manager Anthony Bolton, have been targeted.' Another victim, Ahmed, 26, who lives in London, also bought PTHL shares after the stock was recommended in a WhatsApp group he had joined, and it rose by 10 per cent in just days. He says: 'I invested in PTHL using my investing platform Trading 212, and after a few days I noticed that it started increasing rapidly as they had promised, I decided to put in everything I could, so I also sold my other stocks.' In total, Ahmed bought £32,000 worth of shares in the firm – and lost £28,000 when the value of the shares plunged. 'I put in all the savings I had,' he says. 'It took years of hard work to save that money. I was so frustrated and shocked. I was kind of depressed – I had no idea what to do and I also felt very lonely.' Ahmed contacted others in the WhatsApp investment group, but only one person replied. 'All the other people – who were sharing their screenshots of their own transactions of very high numbers – I think they were all part of the scam,' he says. Many of those targeted appear to be those working in the financial sector, and who you might think are unlikely to fall victim to an investment scam. James, a 39-year-old working in financial markets for a UK bank was stung too, losing £13,000 in the investment scam. For James, the financial implications were small, but the scam took a mental toll. He said: 'From a from a monetary perspective, I'll recover that loss within a couple of months, not like other victims who have lost their life savings… but it is the embarrassment. 'I do this stuff day in, day out. I make money for the banks that I work for, and I feel embarrassed that I didn't see through it.' Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder Peter Hargreaves is another investing expert who has had his identity cloned without his knowledge or permission. Sarah Lennette, financial crime specialist at Starling Bank, says: 'Ever-evolving technology has transformed scams and made it a lot easier for criminals to either pretend to be celebrities or use their image or voice. 'Scammers need as little as three seconds of audio to clone voices, and celebrities often have hours of audio on the internet from TV or social media.' Pheton denies any knowledge of the scam. A spokesman for the firm says: 'Pheton's management team unequivocally and categorically denies any involvement in, or knowledge of, any form of stock price manipulation. 'Pheton plans to engage with its market makers, Nasdaq, and relevant regulatory bodies for the purpose of holding responsible parties to the scheme accountable.' Robinhood declined to comment. A spokesman for Trading 212 said: 'On July 10, our monitoring systems detected heightened risk in the stock. That same day we placed the instrument into close-only mode – blocking all new purchases while allowing clients to sell existing holdings. 'Trading 212 will continue to act to prevent customer harm, and we remain committed to transparency and investor protection.' Victims, meanwhile, are gathering to pursue class action against Meta, which owns Instagram, for allowing these adverts to appear on its platform, while others are considering legal action against their trading platforms for failing to protect them. A spokesman for Meta says: 'Online scams are growing in scale and complexity, driven by ruthless cross-border criminal networks that use sophisticated schemes to target people across the internet. 'We don't want this type of content on our platforms, which is why we're continuing to invest in technology to aggressively enforce against scams, provide people with on-platform warnings and tools to protect themselves, and partner with banks, governments and law enforcement to stop these criminals.' Names of victims have been changed What happened when we joined the group I posed as a curious investor and clicked on an Instagram post offering investing tips that purported to be headed by expert Anthony Bolton. I knew the post was a fake and that Bolton had nothing to do with it, but I wanted to see what lengths the scammers would go to, to get me to invest. The Instagram post contained a link to WhatsApp, where I was immediately contacted by an 'investment assistant' who said her name was Sophia. At first glance she looked like a trustworthy thirtysomething financial professional and took the reins immediately. 'Our company will help you get more than 80 per cent profit returns in the 100-day free period,' she promised. This contact continued for almost two months, with Sophia sending updates every few days. They wouldn't charge commissions on purchases, she said, and their recommendations could be purchased through any trading platform, adding another layer of legitimacy. They were posting daily market information on market movements. The calls they were making were often right, and the communication was professional. Sophia then introduced me to Pheton Holdings, with its ticker PTHL, as its 'VIP' stock. She said it would return between 80 per cent and 150 per cent over 20 to 30 days. Of course I did not invest. I know what would have happened to my money if I did. But I also joined a WhatsApp group for victims of the scam, which it appeared scammers had also infiltrated. One user, purporting to be a victim, posted: 'The group that scammed me have offered compensation of 90 per cent if I provide screenshots of losses and bank details. What do you think?'
