New Horizon Energy (NHE) Oil Scam!!

New Horizon Energy (NHE) Oil Scam!!

I was looking to invest some of my savings as I wasn’t getting much of a return from my saving(s) accounts. I looked online and saw an advert to invest in oil. Thinking that with oil you couldn’t lose your money I emailed for further information. I was contacted back by a Mr Jack O'Connor who was a rep from a company called Lannister knight. (http://www.lannisterknight.com/) Which was owned by Mr David Ramsey.

Lannister Knight was one of the master marketing sales companies to the product company New Horizon Energy. They advertised the fractions you could purchase from NHE where the minimum payment costs were £14,000.

I looked through all the information sent to me from Lannister Knight and since the payment was to be made to an NHE GCEN account I assumed that GCEN would had done a thorough check on the NHE Company (BIG MISTAKE!) so I didn’t do too much googling on this matter. So after several weeks of liaising with Mr Jack O’Connor from Lannister Knight I decided to invest in a fraction lease of an oil well in Kentucky. I was told I would receive my first returns within 3 months. I pay by a credit card payment to GCEN £200 and that was forwarded onto the NHE GCEN account. So all was set and great I thought...!Hmmm.

Soon after investing I was contacted whilst doing the school run one afternoon from someone from Lannister knight called Ben. I never got the surname at that time. This person was interested in my buying more oil investments and I remember telling him when he rang me back that I will wait to see my first investment with NHE come to fruition first before purchasing again.

After 3 months I noticed NOTHING. No calls from anyone. Not even the owner of the company.

By Dec 2014/Jan 2015 I got an email with an attachment stating that the FCA have been investigating the company structure of NHE and have been since the summer of 2014. I was extremely angry to hear this news and emailed Lannister knight to find out WHY they were selling oil well leases with a company under investigation from the FCA? I was given more tosh and told not to worry and your money is safe and this is all standard practice bla bla bla. Soon afterwards Mr Jack O’Connor left the company and he was then replaced by a Mr Michael Brister. I was told some other guff that Jack O’Connor had left to go on a sabbatical, but it’s clear he had been sacked and later that year I was told the truth that he was sacked.

Mr Jack O'Connor - Rep at Lannister Knight that I had dealings with.

Over the Easter months it became clear that this investment was turning out to be a “pyramid Ponzi scheme”, so while contacting Lannister Knight I was also contacting NHE directly too in order to see if I could push for a refund. I did hear back from them stating I could but only once their reconstruction was complete that summer of 2015. Over the months leading up to August 2015 I kept on at both Lannister Knight and NHE for answers. I even got emails from a Ben Gross stating they were trying to get investor to be benefit from assets of NHE or words to that effect (I assume this was the same Ben back in 2014 that was trying to flog me more oil when I hadn’t had a single penny in returns from the first investment (or should I say scam) Lannister Knight sold me.

Mr Ben Gross - Senior Person at Lannister Knight

Soon after all this the dreaded day finally came and that was the letter from administrators stating the investment company had collapsed! I contacted my credit card company under section 75 I hoped I had a claim as I used my card to make that initial £200 payment for my contract. After making my claim it was thrown out as I paid a payment vehicle company (GCEN) and NOT the NHE directly. I learnt a lesson there! I took my claim to the Ombudsman and they agreed with my card provider that paying GCEN and not the company directly broke the debtor credit agreement chain! I did make a complaint to GCEN for their poor due diligence procedures to allow a company like NHE and Mr Adam Skeet (The owner) to set up accounts with them.

Mr Adam Skeet (The Director of New Horizon Energy who now goes by the name of Adam Gregory)

I did Google Adam Skeet and he had done all this before! There was stuff online dating back to early 2014. If I had googled myself I would had found all about his history and would not had went near the investment, but I TRUSTED GCEN to have had done all the proper and thorough checks so I didn’t bother doing it. THAT single error and assumption on my part cost me £14,000! Needless to say GCEN batted away my complaint and along with posting this blog I will be contacting trading standards and the FCA (due to my conclusion this investment could be an “Unregulated Collective Investment Scheme” [UCIS - https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/unregulated-collective-investment-schemes] and the investment therefore could be deemed illegally sold to me by Lannister Knight along with the product providing company (NHE) being a UK based business. If the FCA deems it to be a UCIS then even though sold as unregulated, it would be then dealt with as a regulated product and hopefully this will include GCEN as they were the business that allowed the Escrow account to enable investors to pay Adam Skeet’s NHE’s bank account!) It’s clear since dealing with NHE and Mr Adam Skeet GCEN have changed their vetting procedures which is great, but no good to me and hundreds of other investors that have lost money due to this scam. I also saw online a report (picture posted here) that it was indeed a several million pound scam.

I was offered to invest again to try and allow me to make up for my losses, but as you can imagine I am very uneasy and my conclusion is very simple and that is this. If you get a call from ANYONE from Lannister Knight and yourself is NOT a serious high risk investor then politely make your excuses and end the conversation, as from my personal experience this company's products they were marketing were really only for the high risk investors and NOT for the average person looking for medium to low risk investments!! Like true sales people they are great at all the “pitter patter” and have a very impressive and professional website. If you really are brave and are a high risk investor and want to continue talking with then good luck. I would advise some payment be made via a credit card DIRECTLY TO THE COMPANY YOU HAVE THE PURCHASE CONTRACTS WITH! Don’t pay via PayPal, GCEN, Money Corp, Escrow.... That way if it IS a scam you are covered via your credit card under section 75 if the purchase is over £100 and below £30,000 and you are covered up to a £60,000 purchase with the new section 75a clause too! For me it’s now the waiting game as the best I can hope for is the liquidators can seize assets, sell them to give us investors back some money (Which isn’t going to happen!) OR for me later down the line sell one of my assets and/or shares in stocks and write off this loss against my capital gains tax bill. So I will probably have to wait until my pensionable age to do all that!

I hope this write up helps other to avoid such boiler room pyramid ponzi schemes scams. Good luck everyone and stay safe when investing your hard earned cash. If I can give you any advice that is to USED YOUR CREDIT CARD and PAY THE COMPANIES YOU ARE BUYING FROM DIRECTLY INTO THEIR BANK ACCOUNTS (Can’t be Escrow!!!). So if a company doesn’t accept a credit card payment, my advice is to walk away! ANY legitimate company WILL take a credit card payment for at least a deposit and WILL allow you to pay directly into their business account via a chip and pin style payment structure like buying in the high street. If not... DON’T GO THERE!!!

On a final note over the last several months I have been contacted by several separate companies (but the same sounding voices/person on all occasions) where they stated they can get me my money back by selling my shares. I know on both occasions this was a “recovery scam”, as at first they talk and talk and all sounds plausible, but after speaking with them several times they then start mentioning that you need to pay funds upfront to get your initial oil investment funds back!! PLEASE I am not THAT stupid, so if you are reading this and this has happened to you too then again, put the phone down. Three of the companies that contacted me were Burke Corporate Law, Financial Services Ltd AND London Commodity Exchange/ICE Management Service.