Palmed off – but we get half your £10,500 back
A. A. writes: I saw your article about DOS Palm Oil in September last year. Unfortunately, I invested in it in January 2013, and my first annual interest payment, due in 2014, did not arrive. I was told that the director of the company is Mr Ansar Ali, and I was in touch with him by email in February last year, but I have not been able to contact him for some time. Can you help, please?
ANSAR ALI, 38, from Brick Lane in East London, did run a company whose proper title was Palm Oil Investments Limited, but in June last year he changed its name to Quick Payroll Solutions.
It still appears to be in business, but for how long is anyone’s guess. Ali failed to file accounts that were legally due in 2013, let alone accounts due more recently for 2014. These are offences and it will be no surprise if Companies House strikes off his business.
I do not suppose this will bother Ali. He was a director of a rip-off diamond investment company, Elite Gems Limited, which went bust in 2013. And he was also a director of scam carbon credit company Charles Stratton Limited, which has not filed any accounts since it was set up in 2011. It is about to be struck off.
It would be nice to think that at some point the authorities will catch up with Ali and either disrupt his activities or ban him from running future businesses, however I am not holding my breath.
Ali’s company told you to expect a yield of 12.5 per cent a year on your investment in land in Ghana used to grow palm trees, but there were two problems with this.
He and his company were acting as sales agents for the similarly named – but quite separate – DOS Palm Oil Production Limited, based in Stratford, East London. And it has told me it was holding out the prospect of an 8 per cent return, not 12.5 per cent.
Ali also claimed his company was a subsidiary of the Stratford firm, which genuinely does deal in palm oil from Africa, but this was a lie. Boss Robert Sargent told me: ‘There is no corporate connection between Palm Oil Investments Limited and DOS Palm Oil Production Limited.’
The fact you were so seriously misled over the terms of your investment should mean you get your cash back.
Ansar Ali has never offered any comment or explanation for his misconduct, but after some pressure he did send you a modest payment to cover the income you had been prom- ised. And DOS Palm Oil in Stratford pledged to repay the £10,500 you invested. This was not without its own hitches. You received £5,500, with a promise of the balance to follow. It did not follow, and you and I found the Stratford offices unmanned.
Sargent has told me the business is run from elsewhere, but the good news is that on Wednesday last week he explained: ‘The lady in our organisation who was looking after this issue has left the firm. I will make sure Mr A. receives the money he is owed.’
Investment in land does not fall under the remit of the Financial Conduct Authority, but Robert Sargent is on the FCA’s register of approved advisers so I wondered whether the regulator was aware of all this.
A spokesman refused to comment, saying: ‘In line with our standard policy, we do not comment on approved individuals’.