We managed to recover £85,000 for Moneda Capital victim who was persuaded to invest money while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer.
Grandmother Dawn Crisp lost £150,000 to the investment firm which is now under investigation by the authorities.
National Fraud Helpline helped recover an initial £85,000 for Dawn under the bank reimbursement scheme. We are now looking to recover the full amount.
Dawn, 58, contacted Moneda Capital in March, last year, after receiving an insurance payout for a horrific road accident in 2018 that left her with lifelong injuries and killed her passenger.
But despite thoroughly investigating the company, including checking online reviews, she was stunned to receive an email from Moneda in September advising her it was under investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The grandmother-of-three tried to contact the company to get the £150,000 she had invested back, but was referred to the FCA.
She said: “At first I felt I’d been really stupid, but then I looked back and what I did in trying to ensure I was making a sensible investment and I don’t think I made any errors.
“It makes me feel completely cheated, and I’ve lost my faith in a number of human beings who I thought were legitimate, above board, honest people. It was callous and cruel, because they knew how ill I was at the time.
“Clearly they have no conscience at all, and I find it hard to believe that people can be that calculating in their behaviour.”
Dawn, from Godalming in Surrey, enlisted the help of solicitors from National Fraud Helpline, a trading name of Richardson Hartley Law, to try to recover her money from her bank, Santander.
The law firm has already successfully recovered money for other victims under banks’ fraud reimbursement scheme.
Solicitor Martin Richardson, a senior partner, said: “We believe that tens of millions of pounds of investment money was taken by Moneda Capital.
“There are hundreds of victims in the UK who have lost significant sums of money. We have a number of Moneda Capital investors who have lost more than half a million pounds each.
“While we are pleased that we have recovered £85,000 for Dawn, so far, we are looking to achieve a full refund.
“The issue is that under the reimbursement scheme banks are only paying out £85,000. Clearly, lots of Moneda Capital victims have lost a lot more than this figure. For that reason we are examining other ways to retrieve the remaining amounts”
A former regional manager for a disabled children’s charity, Dawn spent three weeks in a coma after the road accident, when an articulated lorry hit another car and veered into her Fiat 500.
It took her a year to learn to walk again, and left her with multiple injuries and unable to work.
When she received the final part of her insurance settlement in February, last year, she had just started chemotherapy and wanted to invest the money quickly.
She found Moneda Capital online, who offered her a return of £7,000 a year for three years on a £150,000 investment, a rate of about 4.6 per cent.
Although Moneda was not registered with the FCA, they told her the money would be invested with wealth management firm Strowz Ltd, which was.
“They seemed incredibly professional, I did quite a lot of research, and the interest seemed in line with what other places were paying,” said Dawn.
“I had a video Teams call to discuss how to use their investment platform, and they were so friendly, helpful, and very empathetic over my cancer diagnosis. It was very apparent to them I had lost my hair, and they clearly knew how poorly I was at the time.”
She invested £2,500 initially, on March 20, to check Moneda’s platform worked and she could see her investment.
Satisfied all was well, six days later she telephoned Santander and asked them to transfer a further £147,500 to Strowz Ltd.
The bank queried whether Moneda was FCA registered, but were satisfied with a letter from the company that explained that Strowz Ltd was covered by the FCA and the financial services compensation scheme.
“It seemed it was protected and everything would be OK,” said Dawn. “I checked and could see all the money was on the platform, and I felt reassured. I thought ‘I’ll just forget about that now and carry on with my treatment’.”
The chemotherapy went smoothly initially, but in June Dawn suffered a rare episode of chemo-related psychosis, resulting in more than eight weeks in a psychiatric hospital.
“It got worse and worse, and I became incredibly paranoid and tried to break out on several occasions,” she remembered. “It was a very scary time, and during this episode I got a phone call from Moneda asking if I wanted to invest anything else.
“They would have known at the time they were being investigated by the FCA.”
She returned home in August, and received news of the FCA investigation on September 2.
Strowz Ltd is also under FCA investigation, and has been forbidden to undertake any regulated activity or accept any further client funds.
Dawn said: “I feel quite disgusted to have been treated in this way. To just take the money and not have any care or consideration as to what impact that might have on me. It’s awful that it lined somebody’s pockets.
“Getting the money back would make a huge difference to the future. I haven’t worked for seven years, and I don’t get my state pension for another 10 years, so we’ve been financially constrained a lot by loss of income.”
See more about us helping Moneda Capital victims.
National Fraud Helpline is keen to hear from Moneda Capital victims. Call 0333 0033218 or fill out our Claim Form.
*IF YOU SENT MONEY VIA A NON-UK BANK PLEASE EMAIL US: info@nationalfraudhelpline.co.uk*
