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INTRODUCTION
This Blog is dedicated to making public some of the business activities and methods of Liam Collins, David Bone Jr and their associates. In the spring of 2010, the present authors invested in Collins & Bone (C&B), who were offering an enticing 8-10% interest on the basis of buying houses for cash, renovating them and letting them out to students. We were assured that our money was secured against houses that they owned, including their own homes and the properties held by their associated company, Castle & Gatehouse (C&G). We have emails and brochures that confirm these details, as do others who invested on this same basis at around the same time. The idea worked for us for over a year, then in November 2011 they told us they were insolvent. They refused our every request for clear accounts, which led us to suspect wrongdoing. We began an investigation and then started this Blog. We found our suspicions confirmed: other investors had lost sometimes quite large amounts to C&B and its predecessor CBS, and all requests for repayment were adamantly refused. These people use and have used so many names that we found it necessary to compress them into CoBo (for Collins & Bone) and Coboco (for the whole bunch of them – there are quite a few!) Note that there is an index in the margin at the right hand side.

Saturday, 28 January 2012

AN INVESTOR WRITES TO THIS BLOG

We have been sent this letter by a fellow investor:-

Dear Investors,

It is with regret that I am now posting on this blog, as what it means is that I now have no faith in Liam or David returning any of my investment to me. I am owed £11,500 which I can ill afford to lose.

I have withheld my judgement for a long time because, like most investors I was afraid to ‘rock the boat’ with Liam & David for fear that they would not repay me any of my investment in the future. After careful consideration of all of the facts on both blogs and correspondence with Liam I now believe that I will not see a penny anyway. I also believe that if every investor reads the facts and searches within their heart, they too will realise that this is unfortunately the case.

The reason for my email is not to be the bearer of bad news, but more of a call to arms. The facts are there to read and the facts are damning. If you agree with me on this point then please do not cower away and pretend to support Liam & David, afraid that this will scupper your chances of seeing your money again, but instead stand up and fight, remove your support and help to prevent this happening again.

Liam & David have done this before. They lost investors money under CBS and some even took them to court. They left a trail of devastated families behind them but nothing happened because they held the trump card:- investors debt was rolled into C&B with the promise of future returns and everyone kept quiet for fear that they would upset Liam & David and never see this money again. They then took millions of pounds under C&B which has again been lost, leaving CBS investors families again devastated and C&B families newly devastated. Then they ask everyone to show support and sign up to a 5 year plan where they will try and repay everyone?? I think we have already completed this cycle of events before, CBS remember?

This model works again and again if we let it. There will always be a promise to pay investors money back and investors will always be afraid to rock the boat for fear of not seeing it again, so new ventures are created, new promises are made, new investment is given, that investment is lost and investors say nothing in the hope that one day they will be paid something back. Whether this is the intention of C&B I do not know but I am angry that this model has worked before and looks like it is working again, I am angry that they have taken investment, lost it and then think it is acceptable to repeat this a second time and I am angry that they talk about morals when it is not morally right to take investment again under these circumstances.

Questions I would ask all investors are:

-          Was anyone told about CBS when they invested?
-          Has anyone seen an Assets and Liability statement from Liam or David?
-          Does anyone know what equity they have in their homes? I am reliably informed they are fully-mortgaged but this can’t be right as this was our security and the reason a lot of people were persuaded to buy, right?
-          Does anyone know how many properties they own (this was the SOLE purpose of our investments)?

I don’t know any of the above - and I have politely asked on many, many occasions! Do you?

Liam and David are unlikely to ever be able to trade and take investment in this country again, and I would say that this is a good thing because history tells me and them that they cannot do it and I would hate to see a third trail of devastated families left behind them. This leaves them the option of getting a job or dancing, either way it is going to take more than a lifetime to repay anything of the millions of pounds they have lost.

So unfortunately my advice is to stop being fearful, accept that making millions to pay us back is a near-impossible task at the best of times but with their history it is totally impossible, withdraw your support from Liam & David and help prevent this from happening again.

I have provided my contact details to the authors of this blog and am happy to speak to any investor that would like to talk this through.

Best wishes to all,

Ross

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