A 79-year-old Londoner was left “devastated” after losing £20,000 of his life savings to an investment company that went bust within weeks.
Edgar Peters, from Ealing, invested in a property bond with Unique Property Investment Group after responding to an advert on Facebook.
Wary of making an investment, the retired restaurateur met a representative of the company at its offices in Reading before transferring the funds from his Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) account on July 3.
But just three weeks to the day later, he was astonished to receive an email from administrators Forvis Mazars stating that Unique Property had gone into administration.
“It was devastating because I rely almost entirely on my pension, and these are savings I’ve saved over the years,” said Mr Peters.
“I couldn’t believe it was happening after all the precautions I’d taken, all the research I’d done. I couldn’t have taken more measures to guarantee that they were safe. They were seemingly a substantial company.
“They were advertising for investors, yet they must have known well in advance they were intending to go into administration.”
Administration documents show that Unique Property contacted Forvis Mazars less than two weeks after Mr Peters’ transferred the funds.
Even though banks have obligations from regulators to help protect their customers, YBS has refused to refund the money.
Mr Peters has enlisted the help of National Fraud Helpline solicitors to fight his case.
The Unique Diversified Property Development Bond promised investors returns of £1,000 a quarter for two years, equivalent to an £8,000 gain on maturity.
The money was supposed to help top up Mr Peters’ pension and, having been scammed previously, he was at pains to ensure his investment was safe.
“I did my due diligence on Unique Property,” he said. “I told them I had been recently scammed so I was pretty cautious and I asked them all kinds of questions. They assured me they were a responsible and viable company, showed me how they made their money and told me my investment was protected by the government. But that turns out not to have been the case.
“I must have been one of the last investors before they shut up shop.”
The father-of-one said he was “disappointed” that YBS had refused to refund his money.
“This amounts to about a third of all my savings,” he added. “I’m not a millionaire, I live in rented assisted property, so I’m just an ordinary old man.
“All of these institutions say ‘no’, keep their fingers crossed and hope you’ll leave it at that.”
A spokesperson for YBS said: “We do not comment on individual cases.”
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