DAVID BONE JR POSTPONES PUBLIC EXAMINATION

This is just a note to let all CoBo's investors know that David Bone Jr has obtained a postponement of his interview with the Public Examiner until 10th July on the grounds that he had a work contract which he did not want to break. Was this perchance a gig with Faces of Disco? 

Liam Collins's appointment is for 3rd July.

It is high time these two had to answer for all the trouble and misery they have caused, but their lifestyle to date has been based squarely upon postponement and evasion, so it shows every sign of being a rather long haul to get to the reckoning. In the meantime, they are raking in cash from their performances. It is highly unlikely—isn't it?—that they are keeping any account of the money that the public throws at them and as for tax, well they have never been too bothered about keeping up to date with that either. It's amazing that they are still being allowed to get away with all this; the chaotic state of modern Britain just might have something to do with it! 

JUSTICE, FAIR PLAY AND ... COBOCO

What most of all distinguishes a civilized society from the many societies that are in various stages of collapse and disorder? Top of the list must surely be the Rule of Law, happily married to Fair Play. British society is renowned for its exceptionally good justice system; criminal practices and all kinds of foul play meet their nemesis sooner or later in the courts and the subsequent dispensations. 

Coboco have consistently shown a hubristic contempt for the law of this Land: there are examples in earlier posts on this blog. As noted heretofore, many people have obtained County Court judgements against them, which  they have ignored—in the full knowledge that such judgements are expensive and time-consuming to enforce, so that most people will soon become exhausted with it all and will ultimately write off their loss as a bad debt. Which left Coboco free to continue obtaining money by various forms of deception.

Coboco have been quite cynically unscrupulous about whom they targeted for funds, whether it was people who'd saved money for their retirement or had redundancy payments, people who needed more money to live on and who thought the rate of interest offered by Coboco would provide it or whether it was students, sometimes from other countries, most of whom could ill afford to be robbed of the deposits they had handed over to secure somewhere to live for the duration of their courses.

When challenged by anyone whose money they have unfairly or illegally taken, a member of the Coboco group can turn nasty and they habitually pass an enquirer from one member to another, which can go on until the victim is tired out and fed up. We have numerous reports of this sort of thing and there are others published on Facebook.

So, who are these shady people? Who exactly are those we call Coboco? The names of the principals will be familiar to most of those concerned, so the following list entails repetition:-

Coboco are (so far): 

Liam Collins 

David Bone Jr 

Mark Black

David Bone Sr (father of David Jr and of Rachael, uncle of Liam Collins)

Rachael Bone (sister of David Bone Jr)

Patrick Collins (brother of Liam Collins)

No doubt other family members are involved; this Blog does not yet have full details. We do know that all of those mentioned have benefited from investors' money and the rent and deposits that students paid for the various properties Coboco were managing. They have declined to go to the trouble of accounting for it, but will be required to do so in due course. 

We remind readers that CoBo's total debt stands at somewhere around £4 million. They still seem to be living quite comfortably, thanks to investors' funds, though they may have had to cut back on some extravagances.

THE PUBLIC EXAMINER NEEDS YOUR REPORT!

The Official Receiver (OR) has appointed a Public Examiner (PE) for Liam Collins and David Bone Jr. (CoBo). His contact details are:

Martin Faulkner  

Official Receiver's Office

2nd Floor 

Cunard Building

Pier Head

Liverpool L3 1DS

0151 243 7859   martin.faulkner@insolvency.gsi.gov.uk

Anyone who is owed money by Collins and  Bone (CoBo) or whose money was misused or misappropriated by them (including unreturned deposits) can send their details and a full report to the Public Examiner. He would like to receive reports before he interviews CoBo; the first interview is scheduled for 26th June.

NB  The OR should already have in his possession details of all Collins & Bone PN holders, so they do not have to send them to the PE; however, any reports they wish to make regarding misuse of their funds, misrepresentation and/or mis-selling by CoBo would be useful to him.

PUZZLEMENT PRACTICE

To begin the week, Jasmine offers readers a little light diversion in the form of a dedicated Coboco crossword. A mystery prize goes to the first correct entry sent to irnist23@gmail.com

 

CLUES:

Entries must be in by midday on 27th June, after which the completed crossword will be published.

NB  The mystery prize is not available to members of the IFS Team nor to Coboco and Associates.

____________________________________________

27th June 2012. Well, says Jasmine, here is my completed crossword, for those interested. I hope you enjoyed having a go.

NOVOCASTRIA, MARK BLACK & MISSING DEPOSITS

Here's a recent post on Facebook in the page on Getting Our Diggs Deposits Back:

 

The house on which Gem and her friends put a deposit is 41 Albert Street, Preston. Interestingly, in the CoBo property schedule issued to investors it is listed as belonging to Liam Collins and Iqbal Singh, not David Bone Jr. It seems that these names get shuffled about to suit whatever the Coboco group have in mind at the time. They have been doing this, and getting away with it for a number of years. Now at last they are coming under the spotlight.

The directors of Novocastria Lettings are listed as Mark Black and David Bone Senior. Rachael Bone managed the office. We want to know why Novocastria Lettings took a deposit in February 2012 for September of this year when they all knew that Liam Collins and David Bone Jr would almost certainly be bankrupt well before that month. The deposits were paid  into Novocastria Lettings bank account. We want to know what happened to that money.

In the Castle & Gatehouse brochure, it says of Mark Black "He holds a Law Degree, MBA and studied Real Estate at Harvard Business School.*" In view of which, he must surely know that according to the Law of this Land, tenants' deposits must be held in [1] a special government-registered account or [2] in an insured account, so that tenants' money is not at risk in the event of business failure.

There are serious irregularities here and it has been noted by many people that each named person of the group that we call Coboco characteristically evades responsibility towards those people whose money they have taken, whether they are investors or students.  

_________________________________________________________

* Would that be the one in Penzance, perchance?

DAVID BONE JR IS BANKRUPTED

David Bone Jr was made bankrupt today at the Wigan County Court. He did not appear, as you might have guessed.

The Official Receiver is appointing a trustee to manage CoBo's assets and sort out the tangle of their financial affairs. This promises to be a most difficult and protracted task and readers are advised to settle in patiently to await the eventual outcome.

We shall communicate on this blog any news that reaches us about the progress of the investigation and management decisions.

COBOCO HAVE SPENT THE MONEY. NOW WHO'S TO BLAME?

One person who invested in Collins & Bone has written:

"Where does the blame lie? False promises and mishandling of funds by the partners certainly has happened but sadly we feel we have to accept some of this situation as our fault. We, like, I am sure, a lot of other people were lured by ‘greed’ and the possibility of 10% interest which was so much better than the banks were offering. Everyone also knows the banks can offer full security for a certain amount of investment not so private investment." 

Investors will probably note that this is how CoBo try to explain away their wrongdoing and evade responsibility for the consequences. The person who wrote the quotation has obviously either been completely taken in by CoBo's sales talk and explanations or is in some way connected with them or even related to them.

To say that investors are to blame, even if only partly, for having trusted the mendacious words of these thoroughly dishonest people (Coboco) and to call investors greedy for wanting to surpass the banks' paltry percentages is downright ridiculous. 

The property investment ideas that CoBo sold in their slick brochures could well have yielded a high return; the point is that they did not put these ideas into practice. Despite collecting more than a million pounds sterling in 2010, they bought no houses. They did not even pay off their existing mortgages. What did they do with the money??? That is, apart from buying a new BMW, etc., and spending freely.

Investors need not feel guilty or stupid for falling for CoBo's false promises. Note that Anthony Lyons, a noted property magnate and another equally astute businessman were considering investing £20 million in a joint venture with them, on the sole basis of CoBo's confidence in the ideas they had thought up. Unfortunately, CoBo have shown that they are not the least interested in the work involved in realizing such ideas; instead, they have shown that they are only interested in taking people's money.

COLLINS: FALSE STATEMENT ABOUT IVA ATTEMPT

Liam Collins sent an email to all investors yesterday morning, claiming that this Blog was responsible for the failure of their attempt to set up an IVA. The Insolvency Practitoner concerned is in Northern Ireland; his name is Michael Peoples. Ewart Tempest (see his blog indexed at right) wrote to Mr Peoples to find out why the IVA process had stalled. Readers will take note of the fact that what Collins said to his investors was, once again, wholly untrue. Here is the exchange:

 

Dear Mr Peoples,

Liam Collins has posted an e-mail to investors in which he states the following:

"The IVA company we had engaged, pulled out last Wednesday due to 'extreme hostility' from the George's as well as the other handful of people we have going against us. Their concern was that there had been press threats and it was too much of a risk for their company."

McCambridge Duffy is 'The IVA company' mentioned above. Can you comment on the above statement and the nature of the 'extreme hostility' that your firm was subjected to by the Georges* and others?

Ewart 

(a major Collins & Bone Partnership investor)

 

* These are the famous Sally and Jasmine, of course, authors of the present Blog —Editor  

________________________________________

Dear Mr Ewart,

A number of people contacted ourselves and Mr Chris Jary —who helped Liam [Collins] get the first adjournment— making various accusations. While this may indeed be a factor in deciding whether to proceed with the IVA, there was also an issue with Mortgage Express who were the main lender to Collins & Bone. It is their policy to appoint LPA receivers if a landlord enters an IVA and this would have caused any IVAs to collapse. We spoke to them on a number of occasions and they would not say for definite that they would not appoint LPAs.

This was a huge factor in being unable to proceed as we could not draft proposals and recommend them to creditors knowing that Mortgage Express could pull the plug immediately afterwards. They did say they would refer the case to their risk team and hopefully it would be looked favourably upon, but that answer was not enough to justify the work and expense involved in drafting IVAs.

I hope this information is helpful but should you require anything further please give me a call.

Kind Regards,

Michael Peoples

Insolvency Practitioner

LIAM COLLINS BANKRUPTED

For the information of any investor who didn't receive it, here is our Circular #16, which went out this afternoon:-

Dear All—

Liam Collins was declared bankrupt this morning in Newcastle at 11:55 am. He didn't bother to turn up, of course. Instead, he asked for the hearing to be transferred to London. This was refused by the judge.

The Newcastle Evening Chronicle asked us for a comment and this is what we wrote to them:-

"The bankruptcy of Liam Collins is the first small step in clearing up the total shambles of his financial affairs, which have led to loss of invested funds for many people, several of whom are retired and some in financial difficulty. His associates will also have to answer for the years of mismanagement and downright deceit in which they have all been engaged. His partner, David Bone, Jr also faces a bankruptcy hearing, on the 31st May.

NB  The debts for which Collins and Bone are responsible amount not to £1m but to £4m (that's four million pounds).

We think that a comment from an investor, which was posted on our blog is worth repeating here:

"Dear Sir/Madam, I would personally like to wish Mr Liam Collins all the best with the Olympic bobsleigh attempt. He's a slippery customer so will be a great asset to the team. I thank you. Annoyed Of Newcastle."

COBOCO IN THE NEWS AGAIN!

For the interest of all serious Cobocowatchers, the following article appeared in the Newcastle Sunday Sun on 6th May ...

Home News North East News 

GRANDAD THREATENED
May 6 2012 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun 

 
An athlete sent threatening text messages to a grandfather amid a battle to recoup £8,000 in unpaid wages.

Grandfather Brian Forrest contacted us after spotting the Sunday Sun’s story about Liam Collins, who shot to fame with his Faces of Disco act on Britain’s Got Talent and is now battling a £1m bankruptcy action.  Mr Forrest worked as a joiner for Mr Collins – now raising funds to train with Team GB – and his business partner David Bone Jnr until 2009, working on properties that had been bought to convert into student houses. The grandfather-of-two, of High Heaton, Newcastle, worked for their firm Complete Building Solutions NE Ltd until it dissolved and he then worked for MTM North East Ltd, run by David Bone’s dad – David Bone Snr – and Mark Black, which is the company that owes him £8,000. Neither Liam Collins nor David Bone Jnr are directors of that company, however. When the property market crashed, the businesses struggled to cope and Mr Forrest claims he often went weeks without being paid, prompting him to take MTM North East Ltd to tribunal last December in a bid to claw back his cash. But MTM is now being dissolved too, meaning the only way Mr Forrest can possibly recoup his cash is through the civil courts – a costly option he can’t afford.

The Sunday Sun contacted Liam Collins – after which the latter sent Mr Forrest two threatening texts. The texts blasted:

“I have some information about you, Brian, which you might like to defend before I go public myself.”

“I’m not going to be made a mug of in public. I suggest you get in touch with me or Davey.”

The 62-year-old was shocked by the texts from Mr Collins, who was involved with Britain’s Olympic bobsleigh team. He said: “I just want what’s owed to me, it’s as simple as that. I first started work for them in 2008, but after the property market went down I often wouldn’t get paid.
“Last April David Bone Jnr was with me shopping for materials for kitchens and so on, and he said if I stayed off work for two months it will give them a chance to pay off the backlog.
“I told him that technically he was sacking me, but he said he wasn’t. He promised me a payment would go in soon after but when I checked online my wages hadn’t gone in.
“I sent him a text saying ‘another broken promise’ and he texted back to say I should consider myself finished from then.”

Despite the text, Mr Forrest hadn’t been given either written notice or his P45, so he personally resigned and took proceedings against MTM. He obtained a default judgement on liability, went back to the employment tribunal on December 7, 2011, and they ordered MTM to pay him a total of £8,060.59. A month later, however, he received a letter from the directors telling him MTM North East Ltd had applied to be struck off the register at Companies House. He added: “It’s too expensive. I don’t think I’ll ever get my money back.”

Liam Collins, 33, said he had sent an apologetic text to Mr Forrest. He said: “I have recently apologised to Brian. I was furious that I am the centre of an article which I have nothing to do with. My text was out of order. I have never been involved with MTM but if I owe Brian money then I will see he gets every penny.” 

Editor's note: That'll be the day!