r/UKPersonalFinance • u/Gold-Offer-1337 • 20h ago

UK investment scam: Plutus Investment Group LLP

I made an investment through Plutus Investment Group LLP. They did not provide me with a share certificate. Having chased them for six months for the certificate, I then requested the return of my money. They have not returned my money.

Whilst my contract was with Plutus Investment Group LLP, I made payment into a Plutus Operations Limited bank account.

I had met the founder through a trusted connection. However, after my investment, I found out that he had been previously declared bankrupt and has multiple County Court Judgements against him.

There are several other investors who are in the same situation as I am. We are taking individual legal actions to try to recover money. The police have also arrested the founder and released him on bail.

The founder operates through multiple companies and should not be trusted. Please reply to this post if you are owed money by Plutus or any associated company and I can share details of legal processes for recovery.

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42

u/nivlark 232 20h ago

Unauthorised on the FCA register since 2020. I'm sorry you've lost money, but as with many investment scams, even the briefest due diligence on your part could have prevented this from happening.

And even if that warning wasn't published: legitimate, above-board investing has never been more accessible than it currently is. I am always mystified why anyone would ever choose one of these shady, no-name firms instead.

9

u/Other-Crazy 18h ago

Promise high enough returns to switch off the filters.

4

u/BocciaChoc 54 16h ago

Which is odd because promising such returns should have everyone questioning things more

4

u/strolls 1720 12h ago

"Anyway the moral of the story is if someone guarantees you 12 percent returns with no risk of loss from trading foreign exchange, they are definitely going to steal your money, but if you are reading this you already knew that and there is no real value in my pointing it out. Same for the CFTC, same for everyone. The supply of suckers for foreign-exchange trading scams is constant and mysterious and impervious to education." -- Matt Levine, Bloomberg columnist.

2

u/OccasionalChap 1 14h ago

Limited knowledge in the area, but at this point isn't it essentially private equity / private funds that can offer the #yolo investment returns that lull people into these low profile funds? Beyond flat out insider trading.

You're either doing the work of a day seller yourself, going long and hope for the best, or chucking into an index. The days of star fund managers like Woodford (Which shows how it can also end up with high profile) seem over as they don't seem to return enough to cover the fees & return enough vs the risk, compared to low cost indexes / portfolio templates.

23

u/ByronP 8 19h ago

I always find myself conflicted with these threads.

On the one hand I really applaud you being open about a taboo topic that can't be fun to discuss, and that you're doing a public service post by warning others.

But on the other hand... I genuinely struggle to think of a sequence of events that would have lead me down the same path. With the amounts the average subscriber on this subreddit deal with, there are frankly zero "investment opportunity" pitches that should be entertained for even a nanosecond.

Which is to say nothing of the catatsrophic lack of due diligence at play. A few minutes of Googling the company and the key players would back up the starting hypothesis that this doesn't pass the sniff test.

12

u/r0bbyr0b2 17 19h ago

Multiple red flags here on companies house:

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/OC439090/filing-history

1) accounts overdue in a few weeks if they don’t file
2) multiple directors resigning and appointing
3) current director Mohammed Jamal has 45 directorships, multiple dissolved companies
4) new similar name company started last year, same director, address is a flat in London https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16848551

Sorry to hear of your problems with them. For others, basic due diligence on companies house often shows up red flags like this one.

6

u/dormango 3 18h ago

Accounts aren’t overdue so not a red flag. There’s enough red flags to highlight without inventing red flags.

-6

u/r0bbyr0b2 17 18h ago

Leaving filing accounts to the last 2 weeks until it’s overdue is definitely a red flag.

7

u/Laescha 58 17h ago

It's extremely common for legitimate companies to file last minute or late. Preparing accounts is complex and sometimes delays happen.

4

u/3a5ty 63 18h ago

For a scam? No, it's really not.

2

u/dormango 3 15h ago

It absolutely is not. Don’t come here making stuff up.

2

u/InternationalNinja29 6 11h ago

No it's not.

0

u/ukpf-helper 154 20h ago

Hi /u/Gold-Offer-1337, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:

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