Latest news with #TonyHetherington
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
TONY HETHERINGTON: My friend has put thousands into a mysterious new company promising unrealistic returns
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. A.M. writes: My friend has recently invested a few thousand pounds with Al-Tabbaa & Hackett, which promises unrealistic returns. She is now thinking of investing more. It seems to be a company recently formed by one individual, with an address at serviced offices in Covent Garden in London. I would be grateful if you could investigate. Tony Hetherington replies: Let's start by looking at Al-Tabbaa & Hackett Limited. It was set up on February 19 this year, with its owner and sole director named as 55-year-old Hasan Al-Tabbaa from Grimsby. Al-Tabbaa is an interesting character. He describes himself as an entrepreneur and inventor. Several years ago he appealed on Twitter for money to start a bank, promising shares worth ten times whatever investors gave him. His LinkedIn page describes him as having been chief executive of a technology company since 1986, when he was 16. But here's a funny thing. On July 7, a few days after I started asking awkward questions, all mention of Al-Tabbaa vanished from Companies House records. Al-Tabbaa & Hackett Limited now has no founder, no shareholder, no director, and probably no future. The man himself has not offered any explanation or comment, and officials at Companies House rarely discuss individual cases, but it is possible he did not in fact form the company. In the past year or so, Companies House says over 52,000 people were named in company formations without their consent. So, setting Al-Tabbaa completely aside, let's look at the website that persuaded your friend to part with thousands of pounds. The website was set up on May 1. It offers various deposit accounts, starting with the basic easy access account which claims to offer a 'guaranteed 2 per cent return per month'. Any scheme that claims to pay interest at 2 per cent a month has to involve huge risks, but the website says 'there is no risk involved' for the fund as the firm 'protects the capital for their investors'. That's hardly a convincing argument, so I fired off some questions via email. Firstly, I questioned a claim on review website Trustpilot under the heading 'Written by the company' that says the firm is 'one of the largest savings organisations in the UK and Europe'. When I asked for evidence of this, back came an email from Ibrahim Jemal, telling me: 'We do not claim to be one of the largest savings organisations in the United Kingdom and Europe'! Well how about the glowing reviews on Trustpilot, including one supposedly from a saver who has put money into the firm over the past couple of years, when its website is just two months old? The helpful Jemal suggested the customer might be from another country, yet Trustpilot says he is from Britain. In fact, the earliest review of the firm is dated May 19 this year. Jemal went further, insisting: 'We do not serve customers within the UK.' Really? The website says that in the event of any dispute, UK laws apply and 'the seat of arbitration shall be Manchester'. The phone number provided is a UK one. Since I started investigating, Jemal and his website have suggested that they are really in the UAE, and outside the jurisdiction of the UK Financial Conduct Authority. I have passed all of this over to the FCA, so we shall see. Meanwhile, your friend should try to get her cash out pronto. I suspect the real location for this bunch is Fantasy Island. RBS account mix-up C.Y. writes: I have received a letter from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), saying my business account interest rate is dropping. I do not have any account with RBS, nor have I ever had one. Trying to discuss this by phone is impossible as they want the account number, and I have no such account. Tony Hetherington replies: You called the bank, you emailed the bank, and you tried to chat with the bank's online digital assistant. But every time, you ran up against the same stumbling block, which was that you could not tell them the number of the account for which you were supposed to be a signatory. To their credit, staff at RBS got to the bottom of this mystery within a day of my contacting them. You really were named on an RBS account. It belongs to an Army charity, and you are an Army veteran. In 2012, you were briefly a volunteer signatory on the charity's current account before switching roles within the organisation. However, although statements have always gone to the charity's treasurer, the bank was not asked to delete you as a signatory. You have now been taken off the account, so you should not hear from RBS again. But the bank has gone one surprisingly pleasant step further. Because it could not help you when you made contact, it has sent you what you have told me is a remarkably generous hamper of goodies. All in all, well done RBS!
Daily Mail
12-07-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Mail
TONY HETHERINGTON: I was hit with £100 fine while queuing to leave a car park
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. P.T writes: We attended an event at the theatre in Nottingham and parked in the Euro Car Parks facility on Upper Parliament Street. Instructions on the payment machine said to pay on exit. At the end of the evening I queued at the machine, typed in my car registration, and was asked to pay £7.20, which I did. Some days later, however, I received a Parking Charge Notice (PCN), demanding £100. Tony Hetherington replies: According to the PCN, your car spent three hours and 12 minutes in the car park, but your £7.20 only paid for three hours. The explanation was simple. When the theatre performance ended, lots of people wanted to exit the car park at the same time, resulting in a queue. And this was made worse because of roadworks that restricted the flow of traffic outside the car park. You appealed against the £100 penalty, but Euro Car Parks (ECP) rejected your explanation. However, its rejection letter is nonsense! It says: 'Signage is clear – drivers must purchase a valid pay and display ticket for the full duration of their stay.' Absurdly, ECP backed up its demand by sending you a photo of the signage – which does not say that drivers must purchase a valid pay and display ticket. It says: 'Payment to be made at the end of your stay. To pay at the pay machine, please enter full vehicle registration via the key pad.' In short, you obeyed the instructions. You did what you were told to do. You paid the fee that ECP's machine demanded. ECP then ignored its own instructions and demanded £100 from you for doing exactly what it told you to do. And when you appealed, it issued what must be an automated reply turning you down. I say it must be automated because it is hard to believe that any human being would consider your appeal and then believe that the rejection letter and photo you received made an atom of sense. ECP's rejection explained that it belongs to POPLA, the Parking on Private Land Appeals organisation used by car park operators. Sneakily, though, using POPLA is a gamble. ECP said it would settle for £60 if you paid up immediately, but if you went to POPLA and lost, then ECP demanded the whole £100. I am sure lots of drivers pay up to be sure of saving £40, rather than gamble on an industry organisation upholding an appeal, but you decided you would see whether POPLA saw sense where ECP could not. And you also contacted me. I then contacted ECP. I asked, what was the correct procedure in the circumstances you described? Should you have left your car blocking the exit queue and gone back to the machine? If so, how could you get the machine to recalculate the fee for the extra minutes? And, I asked, how many other motorists in the same queue were also penalised that night? As well as putting all these questions to ECP, I put them to Barry Tucker, the multi-millionaire lawyer who is the boss of the money machine that is ECP. The company's most recent accounts show a profit for 2023 of over £12 million, so it is no surprise that he owns an £8 million home in north London. Neither Mr Tucker nor ECP offered any comment, any explanation or any answers. But you suddenly received an email, telling you that ECP 'has reviewed your appeal and chosen to cancel the parking charge'. No one can reasonably object to paying a fee to park, but when parking firms set out to fleece the public they should be held to account instead of being paid off like some racketeer. Successive governments have promised a fairer deal for drivers, but none have delivered on their promises. Shame on them. EE is out of line J.G writes: I terminated my account with EE in July last year and returned all the kit – the broadband hub, TV box and mini hubs. But I continue to receive bills. Despite numerous calls and emails to the company, which remain unanswered, its latest demand is for £1,085. Tony Hetherington replies: You cancelled your EE account and not long after that you moved house. On June 3 EE sent an email, saying: 'You haven't paid your final broadband bill of £1,085 yet. Please arrange for this to be paid as soon as possible.' If you still did not pay, there would be late payment charges and you could find yourself listed as a bad payer in credit agency records. I asked EE to comment, and a day later a senior staff member contacted you. He told you that all charges were being scrapped, and a cheque for £45 was on its way to you to make up for the poor service. EE explained there had been a problem internally which meant that the charges had been applied by mistake.
Daily Mail
05-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
TONY HETHERINGTON: What's the Civil Service done to my pension after I retired?
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. Ms R.F writes: I retired from the Civil Service in February, after 26 years. I gave the required four months notice and claimed my pension, but so far I have received no payment and nothing to say when I will start receiving it. I have been trying constantly to contact the pension scheme by phone and email, but without getting anywhere. Tony Hetherington replies: The Civil Service pension scheme is financed by the taxpayer and by contributions deducted from civil servants' pay. It is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, headed by Pat McFadden MP. But the Government contracted out the running of the scheme to MyCSP Ltd – and this is where things have gone badly wrong. You told me you contacted MyCSP when your first pension payment failed to arrive, but nobody could help you. You then contacted Equiniti, the American-owned financial services firm behind MyCSP, but they simply put your call through to MyCSP again, which put you on hold, with no pension, no advice, and no explanation. I think politicians should be held responsible for the failures of companies they hire to carry out what would at one time have been public services. So, armed with your signed authority allowing me to make enquiries on your behalf, I by-passed MyCSP and went straight to the Cabinet Office. Two days later, your pension arrived. This was excellent, but what had gone wrong in the first place, I asked? Was four months not long enough to allow for the start of your pension? And whether it was or not, why was nobody able to explain what was going on? The Cabinet Office, like MyCSP itself, failed to offer any explanation. Officials there seemed to think once you got your pension, you and I would lose interest. Wrong! This is not a one-off incident. Your experience is symptomatic of what can happen when the Government pays an outside contractor to do its job and fails to keep hold of the reins as the contractor goes off course. Who says so? The Government's own National Audit Office (NAO) says so. It opened an investigation after seeing a sharp rise in complaints from Civil Service pensioners. Last year there were over 4,800 complaints, with the NAO identifying repeated failures by MyCSP to start pension payments on time. Some pensioners were waiting for months. And a spot check last November on how long it took MyCSP's contact centre to answer the phone showed on average callers were forced to wait 24 minutes. The NAO concluded: 'Cabinet Office has been unable to hold the current pension scheme administrator, MyCSP, accountable for when performance has fallen below agreed service levels or incentivise improvement through its contract.' There was really little reason for MyCSP to up its game. The Government had already decided in 2023 it would dump it in favour of Capita – but there are already signs tomorrow's mess will be no better than today's. Capita was due to take over the pension scheme in December this year, earning itself £239million to run it for the next seven years. But Capita has already missed three deadlines in its transition work, so the takeover has been pushed back to next March at the earliest. It does not look as if Civil Service pensioners can count on a future that is any brighter than today's failures. WE'RE WATCHING YOU A former Nasa scientist is facing prison after pleading guilty to a £1 million investment fraud. John Burford, 85, who now lives in Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, owned and ran Financial Trading Strategies Ltd. He had worked at Nasa on a team to send men to Mars before he became a trading adviser in the US – but he had never been authorised to offer advice or manage funds in the UK. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that he had recruited more than 100 investors to his VIP Traders' Club, and made more than £1 million from them which he used for 'living expenses'. The FCA said he 'repeatedly lied to investors' and 'hid the full extent' of his losses. In December 2023 it put his company on its list of unauthorised firms, but no action was taken. Last August I warned Burford was still breaking the law, but he was not charged until April. He pleaded guilty at Westminster Magistrates' Court and will be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court at a later date. He faces an unlimited fine, and between his unlicensed business and fraud charge could be handed 12 years. The FCA said: 'Burford fleeced unwitting investors to enrich his life – not theirs.'
Daily Mail
28-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
TONY HETHERINGTON: All 12 cheques I deposited at the Post Office have disappeared
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. M.H. writes: I am a director of a small agricultural supply business, contacting you in desperation. My firm deposited 12 cheques for Barclays bank – totalling £6,212 – at the local Post Office. They were never credited to our account. I have spoken to the bank every week for the past month and had no support. Tony Hetherington replies: The Barclays branch in your town closed its doors three years ago. Account holders were told to use branches in two nearby towns. Alternatively, Barclays advised: 'Cheques can be deposited at the Post Office. Please allow an extra two days for cheques deposited using a pre-printed paying-in slip to reach your Barclays accounts.' I asked the bank what had gone wrong, and staff told me: 'We're really sorry that a number of cheques paid in by Mr H's company were lost in transit by Royal Mail.' It offered you £200 after acknowledging that you would have to contact the dozen people and firms whose cheques were lost and ask them for replacements. However, a bad situation became worse. You deposited a further 11 cheques at the same Post Office, with a total value of £6,593, and they also failed to reach your Barclays account. I began making inquiries again, and a day later ten of the cheques turned up, leaving just £27 missing. Barclays raised its offer to you to £300, and the bank will also meet any expenses faced by your customers who have to ask their own banks to cancel the missing cheques. I do hope procedures at that Post Office branch are tightened up as well. Vinted and Mangopay keeping my cash Ms T.J. writes: Vinted and Mangopay are refusing to release £27 – the proceeds from items I have sold using their services. I have been asked to complete a Politically Exposed Person questionnaire, which I already did months ago. I am now being asked to supply photographic evidence such as a copy of my passport or driving licence. I refuse to do this, as I don't know why they need such personal information. It seems they are thinking of any way not to release my money. Tony Hetherington replies: For those who do not know it, Vinted is an online business based in Lithuania which acts as a middleman for anyone wanting to sell or buy secondhand clothes and similar items. And Mangopay is a money transfer company based in Luxembourg. I contacted both companies but Mangopay, which is allowed by the Financial Conduct Authority to operate in the UK, failed to offer any comment or explanation at all. Vinted, though, replied quoting a 2004 Luxembourg law dealing with money laundering and terrorist financing! It referred to this as a 'Know Your Customer' procedure that Mangopay must apply. But hang on a moment – surely Mangopay's customer is Vinted, not you? Well, apparently you are really a Mangopay customer. Before putting anything up for sale on Vinted, it seems you should have studied the Lithuanian company's 20 pages of terms and conditions. These reveal that it uses four money transmission firms, all based in different countries. And when you use Vinted, you are automatically enlisted as a customer of one of these firms. This, in turn, means you have to abide by Mangopay's own 21 pages of terms and conditions, which give it every right to cling on to your £27 until you jump through a series of hoops. One of these hoops is that if Mangopay suspects you are a crook, an arms dealer, an international diplomat or a high-flying politician, it can investigate you as a potentially corrupt Politically Exposed Person, rather like a Russian oligarch whose assets might be frozen. The pages of questions issued by Mangopay include asking you whether in the past 12 months you have been a head of state, a supreme court judge, or a general in charge of an army. And even if you answer no to every question, Mangopay warns that simply by returning its questionnaire you are accepting that it can demand further information and documents from you. So, are you as corrupt as a villain from a James Bond movie? And just what did you sell on Vinted to spark Mangopay's suspicions? You told me: 'I'm retired and trying to downsize, selling a few things.' You sold a pair of men's loafers for £8, a dress for £4 and a vintage-style trench coat for £15. As for being a Mangopay customer, you protested: 'I never signed up to be one. If I had been given that option, I would never have signed up to Vinted in the first place.' The Trustpilot review site is full of protests from people in your position. And, just a few weeks ago, my Mail colleague Sarah Vine publicly ditched Vinted after struggling unsuccessfully to get money owed to her. She wrote: 'Well done, Vinted: you've wasted several hours of my few remaining years – and swindled me out of £62.50.' Surprisingly, the online barrier to your account suddenly vanished after I started questioning it. You grabbed your £27 while you could. But it was 'a really quite appalling way to operate a business', you told me. I can hardly disagree.
Daily Mail
07-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
TONY HETHERINGTON: John Lewis binned my carpet - but refuses to give me a refund
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. Mrs J.O. writes: In March 2022 we placed an order with John Lewis to supply and fit carpeting for two rooms, hall, stairs and landing, for which we paid £8,480. We agreed with John Lewis that because one room was not ready, it would do most of the job that year and store the rest of the carpet, which was all from the same batch, until a later date. Because of unforeseen problems we were not ready for the second fitting until earlier this year, but now John Lewis has told us it has 'disposed of' our carpet. Tony Hetherington replies: John Lewis gave you no warning that it was planning to dispose of your carpet, and when you complained you were told there would be no refund or payment. You have no idea whether your carpet was resold, given away or thrown out. The closest this retail giant came to an explanation was when one of its customer advisers blamed the long gap between your original purchase and fitting, and your request to finish the job. When you questioned this explanation, a more senior figure told you the cost of storage could have been significant. You offered to allow John Lewis to deduct that cost from any refund, but it became clear that even they had no idea how long your carpet had been held or when it was dumped. I asked John Lewis to comment on all this. In particular, I reminded it that its own terms and conditions said that if you had not made contact with the store within three months of a failed appointment to fit the carpet, then this would give John Lewis the right to cancel the deal and give you a refund after deducting any costs. But this would apply only after a failed appointment – so when was this failed appointment, I asked? If there was an agreement in 2022 to postpone the second fitting, when was an appointment made to go ahead with it? And even if there was a failed appointment, the terms and conditions say that John Lewis reserves the right to cancel the deal – which is not the same as saying that cancellation is automatic. If John Lewis felt entitled to cancel the deal, then when did it tell you this? John Lewis replied that as you had not booked a second fitting of the carpet, it regarded this as technically a failed appointment! But it also admitted that it had never contacted you. It then promised what it described as a 'goodwill payment'. You agreed that the lost carpet and the fitting costs, which you had paid in advance, were together worth £1,824. John Lewis offered to refund half of this, telling you that the long delay in making a second fitting appointment was unreasonable. 'We consider a timeframe of over three months as justifiable for disposing of any goods,' it said. You rightly rejected the offer. John Lewis had not even stuck to its own terms and conditions, but was holding you responsible for half the financial consequences. I am pleased to say you have now accepted £1,448, which allows John Lewis to keep the balance of more than £300 to cover its storage costs. John Lewis told me: 'We take pride in our customer service and have countless happy customers, so we are really sorry to hear of Mr & Mrs O's case.' But they had heard of this from you, before you contacted me, so it is a shame that it took an intervention from The Mail on Sunday to remind it what customer service should look like. Big claims… big debts A will-writing firm run by an unauthorised financial adviser has been forced to take down false claims on its website. Elite Wills & Estate Planning, in Worthing, West Sussex, offered funeral plans but did not have Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approval, and also claimed to be a member of the Master Guild of Will Writers and follow its strict code of practice. In fact, the organisation had ceased to exist some time ago and never had regulatory powers. Elite's boss Ian Hill blamed his website operator for failing to delete both claims. In February I reported how Elite's sister company Thurlow Wealth Ltd – also run by Ian Hill – had failed to repay an elderly investor £25,000 that was due in 2023, and its accounts showed it owes around £1.6 million. But according to Hill, his investors are high net worth individuals who can afford the losses, so he does not need FCA authorisation to offer them high-risk schemes. He also claims his investors' money has been passed on to market traders who are backed by one of the world's biggest insurance companies. The arrangement is secret, he says. The investor's family have now reported this to the police.
