I notice that Barclays Bank is running an advertisement on UK TV designed to help people avoid fraud, writes a Dear Reader.
What a shame it never ran a similar ad, here in Portugal, to warn people not to invest in their very own 'Top Selection Vintage Utilities IV' investment scheme.
If ever there was a case of fraud this must rank as one of the biggest. I am an expat OAP living in the Algarve.
In 2013 I invested €60,000 with Barclays Top Selection Fund. The investment was for 5-years and shared between Barclays and Portugal Telecom, although there was no mention of PT in the name of the product.
Presumably the blurb focussed on 'Barclays' to entice people in. At the time I was assured by my Bank Manager and his colleague that the investment had absolutely no risk whatsoever and that I was guaranteed my money back. The very worst scenario being only 2.5% interest on my investment.
I was also told that my money was going to be invested in a variety of fifteen worldwide funds. These 'sales' points were also pointed out to me in the contract.
It seems to me that the investment was doomed from the very beginning. In fact I would say that this whole affair stinks of corruption at the highest level. Here is the time-line of events relating to the disastrous outcome of this saga. I haven't bothered naming names, they're all easily found on the Internet.
2013 January - Banco Espírito Santo (BES) was already technically bust. No surprise having been responsible between 2012-2014 for more than half of the €10 billion of offshore transactions sending money to Panama.
All this supposedly unknown to anyone, even the Portuguese Tax Authority which seem to have had a rather convenient computer systems failure while 14,000 transfers took place.
The Finance Minister at the time claims he only read about BES problems in the newspapers, while while the Bank of Portugal did know but proposed to do nothing.
It later transpired that Portugal Telecom also knew, but still loaned BES €1.4 billion - no doubt a part of this sum, if not all, being made up from the money people were duped into believing Barclays was going to invest for them.
2013 - CEO of Barclays Portugal and two other people acquitted after an INTERNAL investigation by Barclays UK
2013 June - Investment started 2013 October - PT combines with Oi (Brazil Telecom)
2014 - BES loses $4.8 billion in the first 6 months (I wonder where they lost it? Could it be Panama?)
2014 August - CEO of PT moves to Oi in Brazil
2014 October - BES 'officially' Bankrupt
2015 January - PT offices searched regarding fraudulent loan to BES
2015 January - PT bought by Altice - a Netherlands based telecom company owned by an individual who for some reason feels the need to possess four nationalities. My guess is he's just making sure he has somewhere to escape to when the next pile of excrement hits the fan.
2015 September - Barclays sells retail branches in Portugal (at a £200 million loss) to BankInter (Spanish Bank).
Presumably Barclays had decided that now was the time to dissociate itself from the entire affair. The question is how much did they already know from the very beginning? It's hard to imagine that they never knew of the problems at BES before they and Portugal Telecom devised this scam and came up with Barclays Top Selection Fund.
2016 June - Oi bankrupt, claiming not to have known of PTs massive debts, even though Oi was run for a while by the former CEO of PT and PT also had two Brazilian Directors in 2014
2018 April - Altice fined €125 million by the EU for breaching merger rules when acquiring PT
2018 June - Investment now lining the pockets of some rather dubious shareholders of Oi in Brazil and a few others in Portugal no doubt. And of course let's not forget the Bankers in Panama.
I thought that Barclays was supposed to be looking after my money. Strange how they, Barclays, and PT devised a nice little money-grabber just at the right time - a time when PT was passing huge amounts to its pals at BES and who, in turn, were very kindly passing it on to their mates in Panama.
What was Barclays doing? Why was PT left holding all the assets?
If the money had been invested with the global funds stated in the contract that's where it should still be now. When they made such a swift exit from Portugal in 2015 and sold their retail and insurance dealings Barclays should have given us investors our money back.
That's surely when they broke their contract with investors. In my opinion Barclays should also be held accountable for any misrepresentation by its employees at the time of the transaction.
Obviously everything the Bank Manager and his accomplice told me were blatant lies and deceptions designed to persuade me to invest. Probably all part of their training with Barclays.
I suppose that somewhere in the numerous pages of legal jargon of my contract there is a 'get out of jail clause', which exonerates Barclays.
The fact that everything is in Portuguese does not help, but even in English it would still be impossible to decipher for the average layman. It seems that Barclays has absolutely no qualms about stealing the entire life savings of a poor OAP struggling to survive on a reduced UK government pension - shame on them.
Even if the bank is not legally responsible, it should at least bear some moral responsibility. What am I thinking? Who could ever visualise Bankers having any morals?
Having delved deeper into the murky waters of this entire affair I am amazed that no one is yet behind bars.
There is an endless list of money laundering, fraud and corruption allegations surrounding all these unsavoury characters who run these companies.
The Portuguese Government is investigating and has issued a few hefty fines, but a few million must be like a drop in the ocean to most of these multi-millionaires and billionaires. I would suggest that if the bureaucrats in Brussels want something worthwhile to get their teeth into then here it is.
To say that this whole affair stinks is an understatement. I think there seems to be some kind of conspiracy going on between all of these organisations to rob us poor individuals of our life savings.
Absolutely disgusting, immoral and should also be declared illegal.
The moral of this story, don't believe a word that your Bank Manager or anyone else at your Bank ever tells you and never, ever think of investing in Portugal.
Needless to say, I have written a letter of complaint to Barclays, but not yet received any reply.
