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It starts off with a call from a charming female that easily gets you to accept the no-obligation profile of an investment company called Strathclyde Associates to be sent by mail. This company information arrives in a high quality document and reference to a well-presented web page. You are also informed that should any interesting investment materialise, you would be contacted.
Sure enough, such a call comes from a very enthusiastic individual with promises of a quick-return and stock (Advance Media Group) that is about to go mega from a merger/buy-out from a large conglomerate. The purchase sum is low, < Euro10, 000, so one thinks why not. Not long after the stock indeed starts to move up and all looks well. Then another call comes with another deal that again promises significant gains over a short period, but the initial investment is slightly more; the purchase is made and indeed the stock (GreenCell Technologies) starts to climb. Then comes another call that additional stock has been secured from the last purchase and it would be foolhardy to pass such an opportunity, especially since the stock is already making significant gains, this time the buy-in is significantly more. At this point I was already suspicious and decided to call it a day. To test the water, I requested that the stock purchased to-date be sold off thus “consolidating the gains” made to date. However, the water was indeed hot and I got burnt. The individual became quite agitated at my refusal to invest any further, and that was the end of any further dialogue, certainly from Strathclyde Associates.
Thereafter, by investigating further (which I should have done in the first instance) I found several references to Strathcyde Associates – all negative, including similar feedback from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the UK.
Unfortunately Strathclyde Associates are difficult to trace and claim to operate out of South Korea and with no means of recourse, they also use IP phones to call you, although after my last call I did receive notification that they had a new direct contact number (+[protected]). Their web address also changed from www.strathclydeassociates.com to www.strathclydeassociates.net, they bank with Maybank in Labuan, Malaysia. Some of the names, aliases, I came across were:
Hendrik Andersson – CEO
Henry Philips – Chief Operations Officer
James Beaufort – Senior VP for Corporate Affairs
Adam Blake – Sr Investment Advisor (the agitated fat ugly one)
Jessica Walker – Accounts Department
Mikaela Holland – Accounts Department
If Strathclyde Associate do indeed operate out of South Korea, it would appear that legislation there allows all sorts of low life to breed. Recently another investment company contacted me using exactly the same MO, so I went along to see how they would proceed. I was amazed that when the “broker” called, again the same MO, but not only that, was offering the same stock – so be aware, this company called themselves Shaw Capital Investment and also operated out of South Korea.
VB. No further response and certainly no money!
Same happens to me just now. I've got the company information in a nice brochure for a while. The past few days I had a missed call during my lunch everyday on my cellphone without number. Today I received a phone call to my office phone number from a very aggressive person. I also don't know how they got my company address and phone number. The sales person told me same story about Bayer and Norton Scientific. He also said this info is not in public yet. So I ask him whether is this a insider deal and therefore illegal. The person became quite agitated "why do I not take him seriously" and hangs up the phone. Afterwards I found the above complaints via google. I also traced the web domain and found following information:
springhillgroup.com
IP: 203.223.152.146
City: Kuala Lumpur
Country: MY (Malaysia)
State: 14 (Wilayah Persekutuan)
Latitude: 3.1667
Longitude: 101.7000
Around 2 months ago a parcel was delivered to me at work. The envelope was containing a nice brochure from this investing firm so called SpringHill based in Korea and that was it. The same thing happened to several of my colleagues. Around 10 am this morning i received a phone call to my work phone number from some broker from Spring Hill called Michael something. Such Such an aggressive sales person! First of all i do not know who he got the number and how he was able to know my nationality. I had spent 45 mins on the phone with him while during this time he had repeatedly tried to convince me to invest in Norton Scientific which supposedly had recently signed a 50 billion contract with Bayer. I repeatedly and repeatedly said to him that i was not interested. I did not wanted to put the phone down on him so i carried on listening and listening for almost an hour until he gave up. Very skilled sales person tough! Afterwards i took 5 mins to google such deal between the two company. What i actually found was the above complaints from people who went trough my same experience. I would have never ever gave a single cent to those guys no matter how convincing they are. I am sure that some people have actually invested this 5.000 Euro with them. Do not let them fool you around and hang up on them as i should have done instead of wasting 1 hour of my time. Cheers
Thanks for these posts. whilst on the telephone to a 'Chris Archer' aussie bloke by the sounds of him; i googled his springhill group and this big deal with Bayer and Norton. found this site.
alarm bells were already ringing! and you guys confirmed it. cheers and steer clear
In addition their address is listed as a temporary executive suite here:
http://www.moveandstay.com/seoul-s-tower-vertex-korea-executive-suite-31163-office.php
Hi I have also been contacted by Alex Clarke from springhill group about Norton scientific and Bayer. I was gullible enough to believe him and agreed to buy 5000 Euro of stock. Luckily I have found this info and others before I have transferred any money. There were a number of red flags now that I think about it, the vague answers to taxation was the biggest. they out rightly tell you that you don7t need to declare anything as its all off shore...yeah right. My only question now is that they have been on recorded conversation agreeing to purchase the stock, but hey as its a scam they not exactly going to take legal action are they? I will have to put up with numerous calls and emails no doubt, but that's better than being ripped off 5000 euro.
They are at it again. Got call from "Reliance Financial" saying they had company wanting to buy my (useless) AMG shares for high price. Several phone calls later they advise me there is a "lien" on the shares. (Lien being I cannot sell them). They say lawyer will have lien lifted but must pay retainer in advance (Several thousand Euro). Ha effing ha.
Had an interesting call from Alex Clark from Springhill. No idea how they got my number, but wanted me to invest in Norton Scientific based on the same huge Bayer deal.
Same situation.
I have no idea how they got my number (specially since they called on my work phone which i never disclose) nor my work address in Singapore.
Had a short first call (which I cant really remember) and then received a high quality ad from Springhill, based in South Korea.
Then a new call (done by VOIP phone) with a very aggressive sales person trying to have me buy Norton Scientific shares because there was some huge deal in progress (Bayer going to buy Norton Scientific) which has not been disclosed yet.
I have no interest in earning money through shares, so just spent 20 minutes listening to him for the fun. He did become very agitated ("you don't understand... you must be young and stupid to pass something like that) blablabla.
If I wanted to buy shares why in hell would I do it through a South Korea company (considering I live in Singapore).
Indeed, they call themselves now the Springhill Group, based in South Korea. I was contacted by Thomas Rogan, a so-called trader. A very aggressive salesperson. Please be very careful. I will also ask for Sprinhill Group to be added to the FSA list. Their so-called CEO is Peter V. Klinsmann. Their phone number is +[protected]. They proposed me to buy shares of Norton Scientific, a Canadian company. Whenever you try to call them back you will only end up in a voice mail, simply impossible to contact them.
Please watch out, don't trust them for a minute.
Has anyone got photgraphs of them ...if so please let INTERPOL know of the scam !
They have also started to use a new company name and calling them self Springhill Group and url http:.//springhillgroup.com http://springhillgroup.com/
Be careful with dealing with either of the so called financial investment companies, they are all scams.
strathclyde associated
shaw capital investments
Springhill group
Spring hill group
Check the latest listing at: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/overseas.shtml#s
I have submitted springhill to be added to the list, but could be a while as this is the brand new name they are using.
The same happened to me... exactly the same story, same names. So far I did not get back my money. Vaughan Bonnell, any news about your money...did you get anything back?