Case study: I felt encouraged by the govt to transfer my pension

Mathew Davis was contacted by an introducer in 2014, at a time when the government's pension freedom reforms were widely promoted as an initiative to help savers do right by their pension.

Davis, a former civil servant, says he was under the impression after listening to various official channels that investing his pension in the way he was about to was the proper thing to do.

Nevertheless he set out to do due diligence on the introducer, the company and the investment he was about to make. He checked the Financial Conduct Authority register and spoke to his pension provider and a solicitor, and says neither raised any red flags about the proposition before him.

Davis ended up consolidating £110,000 worth of pensions into a small self-administered scheme to be invested in The Resort Group, a hotel development in Cape Verde.

This is a legitimate, though unregulated, scheme and most of the properties offered to UK investors have actually been built. But the investments were unsuitable for the majority of the investors that were targeted, as they were unregulated and high risk, whereas investors like Davis were ordinary pension savers.

Assured by what he had found, he contacted Aitchison for a meeting about a month later. 

Davis maintains he was led to believe that Aitchison was acting as his adviser, something Aitchison disputes.

He says he was employed in an administrative function, effectively delivering reports prepared by external independent financial advisers to clients who had sought pension advice. He says he never gave retirement advice, was only brought in once the deal was agreed with the advisers, and that Davis had spoken to the actual adviser on a number of occasions.

Davis confirms he has spoken to another man, but thought he was Aitchison's business partner or boss.

Aitchison said: "These clients in their entirety, had chosen of their own volition to sign letters of authority, allowing for a bespoke report to be prepared for them. I was not privy to, nor involved in that process.

"Once their report was completed, I was tasked by my employers to deliver said report and let the client deliberate and decide what to do. I always made it clear that I was not there to advise them.

"I prided myself on delivering the reports in a professional manner and allowing the clients to choose their own path. I am not a qualified financial adviser and I never purported to be so."

We have heard similar stories from a number of investors in the same scheme. Often they were seen by an introducer and their pension transfers were handled by another adviser in the background. But Davis seemed unaware of this fact, though he did think Aitchison was reading from a script.