Fraud by

Barclays (Barley) Ltd

Formerly known as Barley Investments Ltd.  It was renamed after we sent a legal letter to demand the refund of our payment.

This fraudulent incident that we have fallen into since Jan 2016 had many twist and turns.  From this painful and expensive lesson, we have uncovered many dirty truths and loopholes surrounding top-rating banks, legal systems and government organizations in the UK, which are used cover-up and protect fraudulent activities.

By sharing this incident, we hope fewer honest companies like us will fall into such traps.  As highlighted in our Due Diligence Tip #3, it is close to impossible to use any standard due diligence method to prevent.  If you, unfortunately, like us, fall into this trap, don’t waste money through the legal system.  They are protected by the “big boys” who are the untouchables.

We spent over GBP 200k (US$250K) to demand a refund of US$35k 

Read the full story as the likes of Barclays (Barley) Ltd are still actively promoting their offers.  We are still receiving from agents.  Some clients who had engaged us for compliance service, have also approached us with similar offers. 

We spent over US$250K to demand refund of US$35k because we had trusted UK Legal system.  We had approached Nominet UK, who initially ignored us and avoided direct reply until we shared our report made to Singapore Police.  We had submitted reported to the Action Fraud with UK Police but had not received any reply from them.

Thus, we have no choice but to seek justice through our own website.  If you face a similar problem, you can ride on this platform we are developing and share your story with us by sending an email to compliance@efesea.com.  However, be prepared to share your company profile as we have to ensure the authenticity of the fraud and scam reports in our website.

Quick Overview

 

History of Events:

  1. In March 2016, after failing to contact the representative of Barley Investments Ltd (Barley), we contacted Slaughter & May, the company’s auditor, Slaughter & May, to request to verify about the contract we had signed with Barley Investments Ltd.
  2. Shortly within the same month, the representative resigned as a company director.
  3. In April 2016, we received an email reply from Slaughter & May that they had conveyed our message but Barley do not want to respond to us.
  4. On 22 Dec 2016, we engaged a UK Solicitors to make a formal claim against Barley.
  5. We received no reply until in May/Jun 2017 through TLT.
  6. From the company filing history in Company House, it is interesting to note that Barclays UK filed to take over the company in Feb 2017 and the change of company name to Barclays (Barley) Ltd in Mar 2017.
  7. TLT filed for deletion, informing that the company had no record of contract with us, and the representative, Mr. Carl Thomas Senior was not contactable due to “mandatory block leave”.  No evidence was ever provided despite being ordered to provide in the Judgement dated on 31 Oct 2017.
  8. Throughout the exchange of information in preparation for the trial, Barley did not answer our queries through Slaughter and May.
  9. During the trial, we finally hear the confirmation that Mr. Senior was informed by Slaugher & May about our request but he had chosen not to reply. Why didn’t he reply?  Is he trying to hide some information?
  10. The judge briefly mentioned that Barley should reply to our questions and saved us from expenses and time.  But, the Judge still ordered us to compensate Barley. 
  11. Barclays Legal department followed up with us to demand the payment.  They stressed that Barley is a subsidiary of Barclays Bank, and the legal department has the rights to demand payment on behalf. 
  12. When we sent the Police Reports we made in UK and Singapore, the legal department became friendly and deny any relations to the fraud.  So, we made a stupid mistake for not reporting to police earlier and having the hope for UK legal system to give us justice.

Why are we ordered to compensate instead?!!!

Why the Judge ordered us, the victim to compensate an irresponsible company? All we have done was politely requested for clarification for the contract we had signed.  Why avoid a simple question?  Why hide behind a “big boy”? 

Why did the “big boy” or parent company (bank) go through all the troubles to protect its subsidiary for wrongdoing?  The bank stressed that Barley is a fully owned subsidiary, and even instructed the Singapore Branch to come after us for the payment.  

Even the Singapore Police Officer was surprised by the judgment! Frankly, we are refusing to pay the penalty fee as we are still waiting for the full Judgement Report to explain what we have done wrong to deserve the penalty.  As what the Judge had commented during the trial, this case would have been resolved or not even raised if Barley or Mr. Senior responded to our question sent via its company auditor.

Even Mr. Senior doubted our authenticity when we asked for clarification through the company auditor, why didn’t it inform us by replying to our legal letter or during the exchange of communications through our solicitors? Why need to hide behind a “mandatory block leave” to avoid direct replies?  Why wait till the Trial date to inform us that Mr. Senior received our queries through Slaughter & May but decided to ignore us?

All we wanted to know how the representative of the fraudulent company who we signed the contract with can communicate with us through the company domain (www.barleyinvestments.co.uk) that was registered at its parent or “big brother” company’s HQ address in London?  They just had an unqualified “director” to inform us that anyone can register a domain.  (I had clarified with Nominet UK,  which finally replied after I made Police Report.  Just read the full details below.)

The most ridiculous part of this case is the Judgement against us.  Why did the Legal system penalise victim and excuse irresponsible companies? 

However, the most ridiculous part of this case is that the Judge actually judged us, the victim for wrongdoing, and expected us to pay damages to the fraudulent company without providing any judgement letter to explain our wrongdoing?  And, when we chose to ignore the judgement, since Barley did not reply to the judgment order dated on 31 Oct 2017, the bank instructed its Singapore Bank to demand payment.

Feeling unjust, bullied and insulted, we decided to open up all the details and share in our website.  We have compiled the full story in 8 chapters and will disclose all the few hundred files and email exchanges (PDF printout) for the public to read and be the judge yourself.   To ensure our files are not abused, we only disclose the files to registered members with nominal fees (Annual fee of $97 or Lifetime Fee of $197).     In our member-only sites, you can access to all our detailed documents, presentation, email exchanges, etc.  These files were categorized and documented by our Compliance Team to conduct due diligence.  It will save your time and effort on due diligence.  In this case, it would have saved us $35K USD on the administrative fees and £200K on the legal expenses.

Updated on 3rd September 2019

Full Story

 

We need some time to compile the files and recollect the full details as we want to ensure we don’t say the wrong thing or miss out any important details.  We plan to release chapter by chapter.  We appreciate your patience.

Chapter 1 - Introducer

For those of you who have been in this business will understand that providers or suppliers of bank instruments have to comply non-solicitation clause.

In this case, we were also introduced to this provider through Introducers.

In this Chapter, we share the names of the Introducers and all the email and documents exchanged.

Chapter 2 - Contract

Upon submitting our application through the introducers, we received the contract.

Having been cheated a few times, we were very careful with our due diligence check on the Provider.

In this chapter, we share the thorough checks we have conducted.

Chapter 3 - Money Recovery

After acknowledging our payment, the representative started to give excuses that he overlooked some additional payment.

He tried to convince us to pay more or cancel the contract, which he will refund our payment.  When we agreed to cancel the contract, he was missing in action and refused to pick up our calls.

In this chapter, we shared all the actions we took to recover our payment.

Chapter 4 - Trial in London

As a graduate of LSE (London School of Economics & Political Science), our company MD was a strong believer of UK Legal system.  This chapter will detail the full process we went through to seek justice through UK legal system. 

We discovered the many loop holes in the system, which assist fraudsters to stay unharmed and for victims difficult to recover lost.

Sadly, the UK Judge was clearly biased or she may have been “bribed”.  She ruled that we, despite being the fraud victim, had to compensate the irresponsible defendant.

Chapter 5 - Reports to Authorities

Feeling insutlted and puzzled, we consulted a few legal friends.

Most advise us to make police reports, which we did.  When we explained this fraud story to Singapore Police Force, the officers were also surprised with the judgement and gave some advice who to approach to gather more details.

We should have made the Police Reports earlier.  With the report, we received better cooperation from UK authorities, like Nominet. 

In this chapter, we share all the documents and email exchanges we had with the government agencies.

 

Chapter 6 - Additional Findings (WIP)

The deeper we dig into this fraud case, the more we discover how well coordinated the organizations were.

There are many similar subsidiaries under Barlcays and other related banks in the western countries.

The over-reaction of the people involved made it hard to believe that there are no insiders within the banks.  How can a bank not know that a domain is registered under its HQ address?

Above is our personal feelings.  You judge for yourself from the details we provide.  In this case, only the government body can find the truth, that is if they want to.

 

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