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UK Flights with Primera Air have been cancelled, as the airline ended more than 200 flight routes from Birmingham Airport, affecting thousands of passengers.

Just 4 months after launching flights from Birmingham airport, a budget airline has announced it is abandoning flights to all 7 destinations in the Mediterranean and Canary Islands.

Primera Air says the services will end during September and October. An average passenger drop of 1800 a day in the first half of this year, compared to last, is said to be the reason why.

Despite being peak summer season for all the airlines, Primera say there … Read more

The Financial Ombudsman Service has upheld a complaint bought by five individuals who lost nearly £100,000 after transferring their savings following a free pension review.

The decision made by FOS could offer hope to thousands of other victims, who have lost their savings in SIPP’s, a successful way to claim back their money.

The five individuals invested into schemes, including Ethical Forestry and Global Plantations, between 2013 and 2016. The 5 victims claimed Guinness Mahon Trust Corporation worked with uncontrolled introducers, to facilitate non-standard investments.

The five victims were cold called and persuaded to invest their pension pots into … Read more

As the summer draws to a close and the tans begin to fade, some of us may be looking into booking future holidays, expecting to secure a bargain by booking early. Others may be considering the prospect of investing in a timeshare or holiday membership, locking in todays’ price for all future holidays.

It sounds like a fantastic way to save money on future holidays, and there are millions of people all over the world who enjoy and benefit from their timeshares. So, if you are, or ever have thought of buying a timeshare, here is what you … Read more

Another Timeshare scam, this time from Malta !

Police in Malta and the Malta Tourism Authority are investigating a timeshare company who purportedly defrauded clients out of thousands of euro’s. The company named as Platinum International Malta Ltd sold a timeshare membership with cost between €2,000 and €3,500 and promised to provide its members with heavily discounted hotel bookings and holiday packages. The membership covered a range of locations in five destinations, all the customer had to pay was €500 to Platinum for the service.

Instead of providing the services they had promised customers were left  with unsettled hotel bills … Read more

Five men have been jailed for a total of nearly 18 years, following a criminal prosecution by the Financial Conduct Authority. They have been found guilty of scamming more than 170 victims out of £2.8 million, in a complex boiler room scam.

The judge said “Some victims lost everything they had” and “their stories were at times positively heart-breaking.” He added that elderly people had been specifically targeted.

The men worked in a boiler room, where they cold called victims and using high pressure sales tactics, sold ineffective and overpriced investments to the public. The name boiler room refers to … Read more

Imagine your loved ones were scammed out of everything they had worked their whole lives for

That’s exactly what happened to one family whose elderly parents were conned by someone they trusted. Syed Bukhari pretended to be ‘Gerry’ from the bank and went on to steal more than £350,000 of their lifesavings including their home.

Bukhari, 37, befriended the ex-merchant navy officer and his wife of 40 years by at first running errands for the pair. Both of the elderly couple suffered from dementia, however, despite this, they were enjoying their retirement and leading somewhat independent lives. They were first … Read more

A new report states that £500 Million has been stolen from customers of British banks in the first half of 2018 alone.

Industry group UK Finance says £145 Million of the stolen amount was due to APP scams, or Authorised Push Payments. APP crime is the fastest growing type of crime and these new figures show a sharp increase in the amount stolen from 2017. In short, APP fraud is where a victim believes they are paying for a legitimate service or item and the criminal poses as a trusted third party and redirects the payment to a different account.… Read more

Some towns no longer have a bank or won’t have a bank by the end of the year. Latest figures published by Which? Say nearly 2,900 branches nationwide will have been lost between 2015 and the end of 2018. In the West Midlands alone 208 branches have or will be closed by the end of the year.

The banks say a significant drop in footfall makes many branches impractical. But many people are upset and feel their communities are being treated unjustly.

The people affected the most are local businesses who operate during business hours and need to deposit cash … Read more

Hilton Grand Vacations Expand To The Caribbean.

Hilton Grand Vacations has announced that it is expanding its timeshare holdings to the Caribbean, and is planning a purchase of The Crane Resort in Saint Philip, Barbados. It is expected to sell for $54.6 million.

Hilton Grand Vacations is acquiring the existing one, two and three bedroom timeshare suites that operate and are currently owned by Millennium Investments Ltd. The deal will take 3 years to complete but sales will start by the end of this year. The Resort will be available for existing Hilton Grand Vacations members from January next year.… Read more

GDPR made its highly foreseen debut back in May of this year and, until recently, the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”), who are in charge of enforcing the new regulations, had yet to issue any fines.

There had been a lot of speculation as to when the first fine would be issued and to whom, and now Facebook has been issued with the maximum fine of £500,000 under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998. Under the terms of the legislation, companies must report data breaches to regulators within 72 hours and failures to adequately protect information can result in … Read more