European Mediation

[Lawbird Lawyer]

Because of its high interest we reproduce this article from This is Money.


http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/money/...r-Garlick.html

We credit this information to an anonymous person who has fallen victim of Eurpean Mediation Limited and emailed us this link besides other sensitive information.

Thank you.

TONY HETHERINGTON: READERS' CHAMPION

Hetherington: Euopean Mediation scam | Boiler room boss jailed

8 February 2009

Every week, Tony Hetherington replies to readers' letters, adding comments, advice and the results of his enquiries.


If you think you are a victim of financial mismanagement, or want advice before investing, write to Tony Hetherington, Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS. Sorry, but he cannot give personal replies. Please only send copies of original documents, which, we regret, cannot be returned...

A.T. writes: I am writing to you about my shares in Carbug. I have been approached by a company called European Mediation Limited which says its legal team can recover my money from a European Union compensation fund set up to repay victims of fraud. However, I have been asked to pay ten per cent of the amount I lost in Carbug to cover legal fees.

Let's not beat about the bush saying that maybe European Mediation can somehow get back the money you paid for shares in security firm Carbug, even if you cannot quite see where the compensation will come from.

Instead, let's be blunt. Carbug was a scam. European Mediation is another scam. There is no EU fund to repay fraud victims. Your money has gone - but I suspect that you know this already.

European Mediation Limited was set up last August. Its sole director, who also doubles as company secretary, is Peter Francis Garlick, 65, who is described in Companies House records as a 'musical technician'. The fiddle perhaps?

Garlick's website boasts of 'our own in-house legal counsel' as well as an international network of specialist lawyers who will gather evidence, 'enforce legislation changes' and ensure that charges are filed. And as well as contacting victims of the Carbug share fraud, whose organiser Tony Rose was jailed for five years in 2006, Garlick's telephone sales staff have also been busy ringing up people who lost money through failed Spanish land company Fortuna Estates.

They even told one victim who lost money to an American firm in New Jersey that they could help him, though the US is some way outside the EU. And they have promised aid to investors who put their money into property after attending seminars run by the now collapsed Inside Track group, despite there being no allegation of fraud against it.

People contacted by European Mediation have been told that its head office is at Jaguar House, in Harthill Street, Manchester, so I went there to have a chat with Garlick about the impossible promises made by his staff.

The building, in Manchester's rundown rag-trade district, is home to several companies and is linked to local businessman Stephen Gilbey, who was briefly a director of European Mediation last year.

But there was no sign of Garlick and his company, let alone his sales staff and in-house counsel. They had moved to Rochdale, I was told.

So I followed them and found European Mediation's new address - a modest semi-detached house in Pearson Close, occupied only by a dog. Garlick, his sales staff and his in-house counsel were not at home.

I pushed a note through the door, asking him to call me, but he didn't. I also left messages on his company's three British phone numbers, but nobody called me back.

Perhaps they have all moved again, which might explain why some people say they were rung up from a Spanish phone number, despite the salesman's protests that he really was in Manchester or Rochdale. And those ten per cent fees certainly do go to Rochdale, to an account at HSBC Bank in Yorkshire Street. Or perhaps they move on too. Don't send a penny.