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.
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.
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.
NHE - 10th Floor, One Ropemaker Street, London EC2Y
9HT, UK - 020 7153 1096
Lannister Knight - PO Box 340521, Unit 3801, JBC 1, G Cluster, Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai, UAE - +971 4 420 4903