Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
A.M. writes: My friend has recently invested a few thousand pounds with Al-Tabbaa & Hackett, which promises unrealistic returns. She is now thinking of investing more.
It seems to be a company recently formed by one individual, with an address at serviced offices in Covent Garden in London. I would be grateful if you could investigate.
Tony Hetherington replies: Let’s start by looking at Al-Tabbaa & Hackett Limited. It was set up on February 19 this year, with its owner and sole director named as 55-year-old Hasan Al-Tabbaa from Grimsby. Al-Tabbaa is an interesting character.
He describes himself as an entrepreneur and inventor. Several years ago he appealed on Twitter for money to start a bank, promising shares worth ten times whatever investors gave him. His LinkedIn page describes him as having been chief executive of a technology company since 1986, when he was 16.
But here’s a funny thing. On July 7, a few days after I started asking awkward questions, all mention of Al-Tabbaa vanished from Companies House records. Al-Tabbaa & Hackett Limited now has no founder, no shareholder, no director, and probably no future.
Sole director: Al-Tabbaa & Hackett seems to be a company recently formed by one individual
The man himself has not offered any explanation or comment, and officials at Companies House rarely discuss individual cases, but it is possible he did not in fact form the company. In the past year or so, Companies House says over 52,000 people were named in company formations without their consent.
So, setting Al-Tabbaa completely aside, let’s look at the website that persuaded your friend to part with thousands of pounds. The al-tabbaahackettcapital.com website was set up on May 1.
It offers various deposit accounts, starting with the basic easy access account which claims to offer a ‘guaranteed 2 per cent return per month’.
Any scheme that claims to pay interest at 2 per cent a month has to involve huge risks, but the website says ‘there is no risk involved’ for the fund as the firm ‘protects the capital for their investors’.
That’s hardly a convincing argument, so I fired off some questions via email. Firstly, I questioned a claim on review website Trustpilot under the heading ‘Written by the company’ that says the firm is ‘one of the largest savings organisations in the UK and Europe’. When I asked for evidence of this, back came an email from Ibrahim Jemal, telling me: ‘We do not claim to be one of the largest savings organisations in the United Kingdom and Europe’!
Well how about the glowing reviews on Trustpilot, including one supposedly from a saver who has put money into the firm over the past couple of years, when its website is just two months old? The helpful Jemal suggested the customer might be from another country, yet Trustpilot says he is from Britain. In fact, the earliest review of the firm is dated May 19 this year.
Jemal went further, insisting: ‘We do not serve customers within the UK.’ Really? The website says that in the event of any dispute, UK laws apply and ‘the seat of arbitration shall be Manchester’. The phone number provided is a UK one.
Since I started investigating, Jemal and his website have suggested that they are really in the UAE, and outside the jurisdiction of the UK Financial Conduct Authority. I have passed all of this over to the FCA, so we shall see. Meanwhile, your friend should try to get her cash out pronto. I suspect the real location for this bunch is Fantasy Island.
RBS account mix-up
C.Y. writes: I have received a letter from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), saying my business account interest rate is dropping.
I do not have any account with RBS, nor have I ever had one.
Trying to discuss this by phone is impossible as they want the account number, and I have no such account.
Give credit: Staff at RBS got to the bottom of this mystery within a day
Tony Hetherington replies: You called the bank, you emailed the bank, and you tried to chat with the bank’s online digital assistant. But every time, you ran up against the same stumbling block, which was that you could not tell them the number of the account for which you were supposed to be a signatory.
To their credit, staff at RBS got to the bottom of this mystery within a day of my contacting them. You really were named on an RBS account. It belongs to an Army charity, and you are an Army veteran. In 2012, you were briefly a volunteer signatory on the charity’s current account before switching roles within the organisation.
However, although statements have always gone to the charity’s treasurer, the bank was not asked to delete you as a signatory. You have now been taken off the account, so you should not hear from RBS again.
But the bank has gone one surprisingly pleasant step further. Because it could not help you when you made contact, it has sent you what you have told me is a remarkably generous hamper of goodies. All in all, well done RBS!
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
