1. Home
  2. UK Finance Discussions
  3. Cofunds - how easy is it for somebody to do a "Maxwell" runner?

Cofunds - how easy is it for somebody to do a "Maxwell" runner?

I have a number of unit trust and ISA investments, purchased via the usual discount shops, over some years.

On various advice received I am transferring these to the Cofunds "wrapper" so I get a single statement for the lot.

The thing which concerns me is whether it is possible for a fraudster (who will obviously have my bank details, etc) to do a fraud, selling the funds for cash, and run off with the money. The person could either be somebody working for Cofunds, or working for the intermediary through which I happened to have bought most of the investments.

I realise the unit trusts etc are held in trust so should be safe but it seems to me that a "Robert Maxwell" is possible.

And then *who* would reimburse me?

Whereas if one bought the stuff through different intermediaries, and never aggregated it anywhere, no single fraudster could clean out the whole lot.

Cofunds themselves have no contact details. They say the only contact is via your IFA etc. Really great.......

Reply to
somebody
Loading thread data ...

In message , snipped-for-privacy@not.at.home.com writes

Killing yourself when the balance of your mind is temporarily unimpaired?

Reply to
Paul C. Dickie

That would be illegal for a UK company with a web site (although unfortunately quite common). The legal contact details and company registration number are at:

formatting link
That doesn't mean that they will take investor queries directly, or make the answers any more reliable than those obtained through a trustworthy IFA.

Reply to
David Woolley

Obtained through a *what*?

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

That, of course, is probably where the lack of diversity really becomes a problem.

>
Reply to
David Woolley

It turns out that Cofunds is covered by the investors protection fund which is worth about £48k *per client*.

So AIUI if you stick say £1M of different investments (each worth say £40k, and each done via a different fund manager) into Cofunds, and somebody inside Cofunds sells all your investments (which they can do

- they have all the relevant details) then you have lost nearly everything.

Obviously this is a risk with a bank also, but a bank has assets, whereas Cofunds doesn't have significant assets. It is an intermediary.

The benefit of Cofunds is that you can log in and see a clear summary of your investments - a big improvement over the often confusing statements one gets from fund managers. And one can trade easily as well.

But you can get an instant valuation with say morningstar.co.uk (set up a totally anonymous portfolio) and not have the risk.

Reply to
somebody

It turns out that somebody has been issuing message cancels on this thread...

snipped-for-privacy@not.at.home.com wrote

Reply to
somebody

BeanSmart website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.