Is this company hiding investment through shares?

Could a company hide money through shares

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My parents loaned a 'friend' 20k to help him move his business forward to then get an additional 5m from another investor. This was in Portugal and they since returned home. Months down the line they find they're not able to get a reply from their friend and found out that the company of the 'friend' has been struck off. They recieved a 'recipt' for the loan at the time but this was clearly not declared; the company field dormant account stating 100GBP in the accounts. Presumably they were suggesting they never had traded and didn't have any debts to strike off the company. I've suggested they try to get the company re-instated, as a creditor, and then petition to liquidise it to reclaim their money.

They had been in contact with an individual who claimed to be working of behalf of the 5m investor. A long time went by and they said none of the 5m was reclaimable and they would not be able to get their 20k back. 

Looking at the documents filed on Companies House there is a share holding doc that says 200 shares have been issued at 25000GBP each which is 5m. The company has filed 100GBP in the dormant account return and then had the company struck off. Shouldn't there be returns with the share investment of 5m? Surely the company can't be wound up without declaring this?

 

 

Replies (6)

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paddle steamer
By DJKL
24th Feb 2017 15:57

Who did they lend money to, the friend or his company?

Where is company registered?

Is friend still capable of being contacted, if so what does he say?

Who is the individual acting for the £5m investor, did he confirm the investor did acquire the shares for £5m, why is the " agent" for the investor so sanguine re his "client's" £5m.

Or is the "agent" who he represents himself to be?

I suspect they are going to struggle here, once all facts firmly established solicitor/police may be avenues, however do not hold breath and solicitor route could be good money after bad and getting police involved may be an uphill struggle.

On a more practical note, do remove cheque book from your parents, they may well now be deemed unfit to manage their own finances.

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By JLaddin
24th Feb 2017 16:10

Thank you for you input.

Perhaps the background was more information than I needed to say and clouded what I really want to know which is about the documents filed by the company. That states 200 shares at 25000 pounds each. Yet 5m has not been declared in any returns and the company has been allowed to strike itself off the register. Does that sound ok?

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By Ruddles
24th Feb 2017 16:31

You need to be clearer with the timescales. If the dormant accounts were filed before the allotment of shares, and then the company struck off (without filing further accounts) then the documents filed at CH would not match.

If however the dormant accounts were prepared to a date after the allotment of shares (assuming that the allotment did in fact take place) then the accounts would indeed be wrong.

Regardless of what has actually been filed at CH, if there was a genuine investment of £5m, I think the Treasury Solicitor (and perhaps the police) should be very interested in what happened to the cash.

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By ireallyshouldknowthisbut
24th Feb 2017 16:55

It sounds like a variation on an advance fee fraud.

Having fallen for this, your parents will be inundated with similar boiler room schemes.

The hard bit is convincing them they have been done and to try and protect them from the next one.

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By bernard michael
25th Feb 2017 11:20

Were the shares shown as paid up or just issued ?

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By zebaa
25th Feb 2017 16:38

They were conned.
The money is gone.
Accepting this is difficult but is the only way to understand they have paid £20k for a lesson. Failure to learn will cost more, which is the real problem as 'irealy.. ' said.

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