Harlequin’s David Ames disobeys court order, fails to give evidence in court. What now for investors?

David Ames – Harlequin’s Ponzi King

TLW Solicitors are here to help on a no-win no-fee basis

contributed by TLW Solicitors

Following recent reports of the Harlequin Properties’ headquarters going up for sale and the company’s chairman David Ames failing to give evidence in court, those who have lost out financially through the scheme are assured that they may still be entitled to compensation.

The Harlequin Property company was set to build 6000 luxury properties in the Caribbean, financed by deposits from UK investors. With only 300 of the properties actually built and the Harlequin Group having gone into liquidation, thousands of investors have been left in debt.

Rip Off Britain

The BBC’s consumer affairs programme Rip Off Britain investigated Harlequin Property for a second time earlier this year, after an initial broadcast in 2010. Although some early investors had been able to claim back their money, the returning of more recent deposits has been ruled out by the company since it entered liquidation.

Around 3000 UK investors are thought to have been involved in the Harlequin investments scheme. Chairman David Ames blamed the problems on the 2008 global recession and claims to have been let down by developers.

Recent evidence suggests the Harlequin case has been flawed from the start, with suggestions that it never owned much of the land it intended to build properties on, and a business model that relied wholly on continued foreign investment. (BFP Editor’s note: It’s called a ‘Ponzi Scheme’. We’ll say it, even if TLW Solicitors won’t.)

Investigations into Harlequin hotels & resorts

Harlequin Property has been subject to an ongoing investigation by the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) since 2013 and two warnings by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). 

Sales persons are liable for Harlequin pension losses!

Oh boy!

“Financial advisers who recommended clients switch their pensions into self-invested schemes heavily exposed to investments being marketed by embattled overseas property group Harlequin are legally liable for losses, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme confirmed…”

… from the Financial Times article Advisers are liable for Harlequin pension transfer losses

Yup…

Do them. Do them all. Lead them away in handcuffs and beat them on the way to jail.

Lives ruined. Pensions devoured.

Barbados politicians played a pivotal role as enablers for David Ames and his gang. Do them all.

Harlequin victims hit with new lawsuit from Guardian SIPP

Abandoned Harlequin H Hotel is a testament to Barbados politicians’ greed and incompetence.

Many “investors” in Dave Ames’ Harlequin ponzi scheme lost everything they had and more. Many of the gullible mortgaged their homes to “invest” in Harlequin, and relied upon the promises of Harlequin’s sales representatives. But the sales people knew that no legitimate investment could afford to pay the commissions that Harlequin was paying it’s representatives.

Now after losing everything, Harlequin victims are set to lose even more as Guardian SIPP is suing the investors for non-payment of the fees related to their self-invested personal pension.

Who is to blame for the mess?

Start with David Ames – but lined up with Ames should be the Government of Barbados, that allowed Harlequin companies to get away without oversight, accountability, annual filings and statements for the entire time. And our Government allowed Ames to acquire and start projects with zero oversight or consideration as to whether Ames had the means to finish those projects. As a result, the ‘H’ Hotel and Merricks projects look like bombed out disaster sites that are a testament to the greed and incompetence of the Bajan political class. Another Barbados property investment disaster that sends the wrong message to the world.

It’s fine to say that Ames and his crooked friends are responsible – but they couldn’t have done it without the wholesale purchase of willing politicians in Barbados and throughout the Caribbean.

Professional Adviser: Guardian sues Harlequin investors over SIPP fees

Will the Harlequin Resorts debacle explode in 2015?

David Ames – Harlequin’s Ponzi King

The numbers tell us one giant truth: From the start Harlequin was set up as nothing less than a Ponzi scheme requiring a constant influx of new victims to keep everything going.

Consider these numbers…

– Total “deposits” by victims: US$800 million

– Percentage of “deposits” paid as salary and sales commissions: 50%

– Percentage of “deposits” used to pay interest to earlier “investors”: 22% (estimated, see below)

– Number of units sold: 9,114

– Number of units built: 230

It might be worth Ames and his merry band of supporters considering to remain silent throughout 2015.

To do so would reduce if not eliminate the anti-Harlequin responses no matter how articulate and factual they may be, given that the anti-Harlequin posts in the main are merely responses to the incessant nauseating, repulsive litany of lies emanating from Harlequin and their supporters in their never ending quest to justify “at best” the gross incompetence and abject failure by the Ames family and staff of Harlequin to operate their businesses in a proper manner.

The constant need to allay the blame for the failures of the Ames family and management at Harlequin at the door step of others demonstrates that the Ames family and management of Harlequin are in serious trouble.

And that summary is giving Ames and his cohorts far more benefit of the doubt than the facts say they deserve. The only reason I can think of that they haven’t been arrested as yet is that the Serious Fraud Office has been overwhelmed by the planned worldwide chaotic nature of the fraud through only god knows how many different companies, coupled with legal contracts bearing so much fine print, inter-jurisdictional references and available outs for the criminals.

The resorts will most probably never get built, not in the lifetime of many of the purchasers victims.      

Harlequin’s H Hotel: Latest photos of an eyesore that spoils Barbados

by St George’s Dragon

As promised I went to take a few photos of the Harlequin H Hotel today.

The site has obviously suffered less than Merricks, presumably because it is in a more populated area. It looks as though it was secure until fairly recently, although when I went it was possible to walk straight in from the boardwalk side of the site as someone has ripped the site hoarding door off its hinges.

There are still a few items of plant and materials on site, although nothing of any great value.

Such a shame. So many people have lost money just to create an eyesore that spoils Barbados.

A lovely view for the tourists from the beach and boardwalk! Click photo for larger view.

Editor’s Note: The exposed rebar is salt-drenched and rusted, with salt-laden water dripping down into the concrete. How long before no self-respecting structural engineer would approve further work? Has that time already arrived? Do we have an architects or engineers out there to comment?

More Photos… 

Harlequin’s Merricks Resort “a rotting garbage dump – a liability not an asset”

Why didn’t Barbados obtain completion guarantees backed with performance deposits and bonds?

Our political class, along with Harlequin and other developers, left Bajans holding the bag!

by Old Cutter

What a mess we have with abandoned and “on hold” construction sites and failed projects throughout this country. There is a reason for this and it is not “economic slowdowns” or “unforeseen circumstances”.

“We have these numerous failed project disasters littering our coasts because our DLP and BLP governments allowed unfettered development of our beautiful island by almost anyone that showed up.”

Politicians’ offshore accounts are fat and happy

Our elected representatives stuffed bags of cash into offshore accounts of their “consulting” companies but never acted to protect Barbados from shaky developers.

Our political class never imposed standard contract conditions like performance guarantees and deposits. The big developers hired DLP and BLP friends and family as ‘consultants’ in exchange for building permissions.

“Everybody knows how this place works, and why the political class never voted for Integrity Legislation or assets declarations since Bajan independence almost 50 years ago.”

Harlequin Resorts is just one more failed developer, but they fell in a big way and are worth looking at closely…

As the broader Harlequin Resorts debacle carries on in the courts we see Harlequin suing accountants Wilkins Kennedy and WK countering with accusations of their own, and many other court battles in various stages.

Somewhere in all of that there is a book figure for the value of Harlequin’s assets, including the abandoned Merricks Resort site in Barbados.

Whatever that book figure is for Merricks Resort, a visit to the abandoned construction site reveals a rotting garbage dump that is undoubtedly far less of an asset due to the demolition and environmental cleanup that would be necessary prior to any new activity. Barbados Free Press covered this story a year and a half ago, and the deterioration is easy to see when we compare the photos then and now.

Secret Harlequin Resort legal documents ‘found on London train’ – here they are!

Dear Barbados Free Press,

We were just coming of a train just outside London and we found a box of documents relating to “Due Diligence” of a company or companies called Harlequin, they appear to be developing resorts in the Caribbean so we feel this is probably a good place to show what we found, especially for anyone out there who might be interested in investing in Harlequin.

There are many files to upload so please bear with us.

This is a 70 page redacted interim intelligence report from Regulatory Legal Solicitors, it makes for pretty grim reading, we did not redact it, the documents are exactly as we found them on the train.

This is an interesting witness statement from Jim Baker contained in the due diligence documents apparently left on the train, by a guy who resembled Simon Terry, but it was dark so we could not be sure.

Seems to be a lot of people suing Dave and Carol Ames in the Courts in the UK, wonder why this was in the Due Diligence, Seems like Jim is saying that Harlequin are worth nothing.

Yours very truly,

Anonymous!

Editor’s Note

Okay, okay… we’re a little behind on things. Might have had a couple of lost nights in the tradition of Dick Van Dyke. (Loved him in Mary Poppins, nevermind the worst phony cockney accent in film history!) The “found on London train” comments and documents were all sent using one of those anonymous proxies, so we really have no way to tell who sent them to us or from what country.

We’ll upload the documents when we can below. We’ll do a few now and get to the rest in the morning right here…

Harlequin victim thanks BFP – “My prayers are with you…”

Charles Ponzi never worked for Harlequin… but he could have!

Dear BFP

My anonymous ID is one of those referred to in the Harlequin subpoena, but I always used an anonymous proxy.

Nonetheless, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fighting off an overwhelming fear of the consequences of them discovering my identity. Not because of the defamation threat; I see no issues with me proving what I said was true. I just could not stand by and watch the shameful lies, deception, bullying and propaganda being spouted from Ames and his conspirators. They misuse the courts to shut down any public criticism because they cannot continue to defraud people when information is flowing freely.

Too many peoples’ lives have been damaged in the Caribbean and UK. Many lives have been irreconcilably ruined. And the UK authorities just stand by, knowing what is happening, and let it continue to happen.

Barbados Free Press on WordPress has been the only major website which has continuously stood up to threat of litigation and enabled the reporting of the true Harlequin story to appear on internet search results despite Harlequin’s scatter gun litigation attack on the rest of the internet.

BFP and WordPress must have saved hundreds and maybe thousands of people from being ripped off and has given those who want to keep the real facts out there and alive a mainstream social media channel to communicate through.

Many thanks; my prayers are with you, me, and all the other contributors who had good reason to comment anonymously under the fear and threat created by Harlequin.

signed, A Harlequin victim and grateful BFP reader!

BFP Editor Robert replies…

Thanks for your prayers, friend.

And thanks to Matt Mullenweg and the WordPress gang for defending freedom of the press, freedom of speech and giving freedom a home.

Robert

Dave Ames and Harlequin Property file legal papers against Barbados Free Press readers

Hi folks,

A few weeks ago we informed our readers that Harlequin had served our webhost WordPress – Automattic Inc with a court subpoena concerning reader comments on Barbados Free Press. Ames and Harlequin want to discover the identities of BFP readers who left anonymous comments on stories about them.

This will be difficult even if WordPress turns over the ip numbers to Harlequin because further steps are required with internet suppliers in other countries. Lots of folks use proxies and protection like ‘Anonymouse.org‘ for surfing too. Nope, we’re not worried at all and we run this here little blog. Have for nine years and the DLP and BLP haven’t found us yet!

WordPress didn’t send copies of the legal papers to us, so we presume they are fighting it out in court with Harlequin and David Ames. WordPress inventor Matt Mullenweg has a reputation as a hell of a scrapper when it comes to defending free speech and he’ll spend millions rather than give into extortion. (Matt is the handsome young chap above, just turned 30. And ladies, not only is he single – his business costs about $400,000 a month to run, but takes in gross revenues of $45 million a year. You do the math. The latest Business Insider issue says Matt is probably worth a billion yankee dollars and he has homes in New York, California and Texas. He was in Barbados a few months ago – I’ll try and find the photos I saw on the web.) 

Today we received more legal papers – unofficially and anonymously – from someone. This batch lists exactly what comments and BFP readers that Ames and Harlequin is after.

We’re not worried because we know that the WordPress business model would collapse overnight if Matt and the boys didn’t defend free speech.

Besides – we believe in Matt and WP crew. They will fight this attack all the way on a purely ideological basis – nevermind anything else.

Meanwhile here are the two batches of documents so far…

Latest – 04447212-Page0-41(1)

Previous – 2014_04_21_19_26_39

Harlequin – Dave Ames serves WordPress with court subpoena about Barbados Free Press

UPDATED April 30, 2014: PDF of Court Document Posted Below

Harlequin / Ames alleges defamation by commenters?

Dear Barbados Free Press readers,

Here is what we know so far…

Today some anonymous person posted the following as a comment on Barbados Free Press.

IF the posting is for true, then Harlequin, David Ames and Carol Ames served some court papers on Automattic Inc. (otherwise known as WordPress) in San Francisco USA, demanding that WordPress produce the IP numbers and email addresses for persons who posted some comments about Harlequin on Barbados Free Press. According to the court papers, it is not BFP who is being served or sued, but our internet host WordPress.com.

We at BFP have not looked at the comments, but they are listed in the court papers printed below. It looks to us like what was posted as a comment contains errors of the type that come when a paper page is scanned and converted to a Word file.

We expect that WordPress will vigorously defend free speech – because, aside from free speech and human rights, if they don’t defend free speech, their business model collapses.

PDF of Court Document: Harlequin Court Document 2014_04_21

Here is what was originally posted as a comment on BFP…

Submitted on 2014/04/29 at 10:03 pm

The following is the Ames application for the IP addresses of those posters Ames feels may have defamed him,

SUBP-002
ATTORNEY OR PARTY WITHOUT ATTORNEY (Name, State Bar number, and address):
Timothy B. Broderick (97082), Katrina M. Saleen (253706)
Broderick Saleen, 2600 El Camino Real, Ste. 506, Palo Alto, CA 94306
TELEPHONE NO.: (650) 857 9000 FAX NO.: (650) 857 1100
E-MAIL ADDRESS:
ATTORNEY FOR (Name): Dave Ames: Carol Ames• Harlequin FOR COURT USE ONLY 

UK’s Serious Fraud Squad investigating Harlequin: Any information welcome!

Harlequin’s The Merricks in Barbados. The reality does not match the sales pitch!

by Peter Binose

Investors in Buccament Bay Resort are the closest to luck as one can get when wishing for luck for their investment from a company that promised everything and gave very little to very few.  But as luck goes it may be running out even for the Buccament investors.

Those that have invested in Harlequins different projects through like sounding Harlequin companies around the world, have only had bad luck.  They have put their money in to what they thought were rosy investments.  Many were encouraged by island politicians and governments, many of which had been warned of impending problems with Harlequin, yet went ahead and promoted them in such a way that now brings  disgrace to those small and even large nations. People have lost life savings and retirement pensions with help from these government ministers and governments.

Harlequin H Hotel now billboard for The Flying Chicken – coming soon!

Before…

Last Night…

Our thanks to reader “J”

Should financial advisors be penalized for recommending the disastrous Harlequin ‘investments’?

Harlequin & David Ames: Knew sales agents were lying to investors.

TailorMade Independent under the microscope…

“In total around 7,000 investors put £300 million into Harlequin, half of this, £150 million was invested on an advised basis.”

Gareth Fatchett, solicitor at Regulatory Legal, who is representing a number of Harlequin investors, said most of the advice he had reviewed was poor and had been motivated by commission. ‘99% of the advice I’ve seen is terrible, inappropriate, commission-driven stuff,’ he said.

It doesn’t get much worse than this, and we wonder when and if criminal fraud charges will be laid against David Ames and his cohorts. So many lives ruined, so many pensions destroyed.

Some new happenings:

FSCS writes to Harlequin promoter TailorMade’s clients

Harlequin investors hit out at TailorMade Group

Harlequin: The promises and the reality

Harlequin & David Ames: Knew sales agents were lying to investors.

The promises!

David Ames pumped a computer generated paradise and a Ponzi pyramid scheme that required ever more ‘investors’ to keep it going.

The Reality!   (click on photo for large size)

The Merricks, Barbados

Abandoned a few weeks ago. Now a visual blight on the coast because our Barbados politicians let it happen for a few dollars and a glass of champagne or two.

(Big shout out to a loyal BFP reader who took the photo. See you at Marcia’s Place, Oistins on Friday night!)

Lawfirms inundated with victims

“Law firms Kobalt Law, Carter Lemon Camerons and Regulatory Legal have been inundated with calls from investors for advice over their Harlequin holdings.

Nicolette-Elizabeth Crozier, spokesman for CLC, said a series of meetings has been set up in its London offices throughout April for those parties who have been affected or concerned.

She said: “Clients will be attended by one of the senior lawyers who specialise in civil fraud claims.”

Investors attending the free initial meeting are required to bring copy documentation prior to attending to enable CLC to provide case-specific advice.”

… Complete Financial Times article: Law firms inundated with Harlequin Property calls

Patrick Souiljaert: “I am making this video to warn people and to help people. Do not give any money to Harlequin”

We’ve been publishing way too much stuff about Harlequin lately only because we foresaw what was happening many many months ago and we know that it will be a huge scandal.

That said, I had to post this YouTube video of Patrick Souiljaert.

YES… Harlequin/Ames did this to the poor man, but so did the regulatory bodies and governments who gave Dave Ames what he needed to carry on his scheme for so long.

Harlequin’s Merricks Resort: Easter Sunday March 31, 2013

Click photos for full size

 

BDO quits as Harlequin Property auditors – says Harlequin directors failed to provide information to BDO

“We have not been given significant information by the directors to enable us to ascertain whether or not appropriate progress has been made.”

… statement by BDO Accountants upon resigning as Harlequin Property’s auditors.

Harlequin Property walks like duck

What’s that saying about a shoe fits? Or is pig with lipstick? Or if it walks like a duck with shoes and lipstick?

I kind of forget, but I’ll bet there are many old sayings that apply right now – like fools and money…

Harlequin Property auditor quits

Harlequin Property, the UK-based overseas property sales agent that is at the centre of a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation, has lost its second auditor in under three years.

Accountants BDO has filed a public resignation at Companies House saying it can no longer act as auditor for Harlequin Property, according to the Brentwood Weekly News.

The firm is being investigated by the fraud office and Essex Police following complaints from investors over delays. It has sold more than 6,000 off-plan holiday properties across six Caribbean resorts, taking in more than £300m, but so far built around 300.

Harlequin Barbados H Hotel – latest photos show stopped project, no workers

(click photo for large)

Sign still says “Harlequin Hotels & Resorts – H Hotel Opening 2013”

Barbados Free Press has been posting H-Hotel project photos since February 2012. The sign used to say “Opening 2012”, but they changed that to 2013 earlier this year. If Harlequin intends to open its Barbados H Hotel this year, the invisible construction workers at the site had better get cracking!

Here are the most recent two sets of photos with the dates imprinted bottom right corner – 8:45am Thursday January 31, 2013 and 2:30pm Monday March 4, 2013. The only difference seems to be that the earlier photos show a worker or two, whereas there were no workers visible at the site on Monday, March 4th at approx 230 PM.

Remember folks – these photos were taken during working hours on working days – on a Thursday at 8:45am and a Monday at 2:30pm. Where are the workers? Where are the trucks coming and going? Why are the gates closed? Where is the machinery? Where is the construction noise, foremen with drawings and teams of masons, welders, concrete finishers?

This doesn’t look like a healthy, vibrant construction site to us – it looks more like a project that has run out of money.

To be fair, Harlequin posted a blog that shows some work happening at the site and in our photos we see some new columns and changes here and there. But look at the photos starting in February 2012 and now 15 months later – We don’t see healthy progress or the kind of activity necessary to open in 2013.

Harlequin: You tell us if we’re wrong and we’ll print your side of the story. Were our eyes deceiving us with not one man on the site last Monday?

And here are photos from a year ago. Is this really acceptable, vibrant progress? Harlequin… over to you!

BFP’s H Hotel Photo Articles – You be the judge!

March 23, 2012

August 3, 2012

October 13, 2012

January 26, 2013

Full set of recent photos