Savings danger at ‘Frankenstein’ firm
Real pictures are butchered to create fake money experts
TO call investment firm Quadriga Asset Managment two-faced is a massive understatement.
This lot is tempting savers with promises of impressive returns, but the pictures of its supposed staff consist of images culled from other sources and spliced together.
I’ve seen plenty of dodgy outfits lift pictures from around the internet to populate the “Meet the team” sections of their websites, but what Quadriga has done is much more sophisticated.
It has taken shots from other sites then jumbled up the features to create new images.
This makes it difficult to use a Google reverseimage search to discover where the pictures have really come from. Difficult, but not impossible.
The supposed picture of the chief executive of Quadriga Asset Management, Jacob Bauer, is made up of four slices taken from pictures of two entirely unconnected people.
At the top, there’s the hair and forehead taken from a silver-haired businessman from the website of an Australia portrait photographer called David Broadway.
Going down, there’s the eyes and glasses of a bald, bespectacled businessman taken from the same photographer’s site.
For the mouth and chin, we’re back to the first businessman, and then there’s the jacket and shirt taken from the bald businessman again, with the tie recoloured from grey to orange.
It’s a similar story with George
Silars, supposedly Quadriga’s chief financial officer.
The top of his picture is taken from the bald businessman on David Broadway’s site, the one’s whose eyes and glasses are used on Jacob Bauer.
But his eyes, nose and ears come from the silver-haired businessman.
The mouth is from the bald chap again, and for the neck, shirt and tie, we’re back to Mr Silver
Hair.
If Quadriga isn’t being honest about its personnel, what else isn’t
true? Can we trust the claim on its Facebook page of average annual returns of 14.6%?
Or the claim on Jacob Bauer’s LinkedIn page that he’s worked at Quadriga since 2007, even though its website was only set up last year? It claims that its UK headquarters is at a prestigious address in London Bridge Street, in the heart of the capital.
This is a branch of office rental firm Regus, which tells me that Quadriga used to have only a virtual office there, and now does not even have this.
According to its website, Quadriga’s head office is in “Wein” in Austria.
If that were true then I’d expect them to know that the correct Austrian spelling of its capital city is “Wien”.
If Jacob Bauer previously worked at UBS as joint head of its investment banking division, as his biography claims, then the banking giant should have some record of him.
I checked, and it doesn’t.
Then there’s the positive Google reviews with comments such as “Great experience” and “Highly recommended”.
The same reviewers all also praise a particular dog-training company in Manchester and a certain firm of solicitors in Leeds.
Either this is an amazing coincidence or a case of fake paid-for reviews.
According to Quadriga’s website, “your investment manager will build and actively manage a bespoke investment portfolio to match your individual needs”.
This sounds like an activity which requires regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority, but its registration with the FCA has been cancelled.
“Jacob Bauer” has not replied to my request for a Zoom interview to discuss my concerns.
Maybe he doesn’t want to show his face(s).
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Can we trust its claim of average yearly returns of 14.6%?