Investors Scammed out of £3m

Reid was jailed for six years when he scammed investors out of £3m then spent the proceeds on the high life. The 50-year-old ripped off more than 50 trusting people in the elaborate fraud. Victims lost their pensions and savings as Reid tricked them into thinking they were securing their futures.

One victim Dave Scholey lost more than £50,000 when he invested money with the Washington-based company. But the rigg worker toppled the scam when he put a call into the bank supposedly taking care of his accounts. And now, as the unemployed 58-year-old struggles to pay off his mortgage, he has launched a legal bid to get the money back through TLW.

Dave, of South Shields, said: “I don’t want to see anybody go through what I have been through, and I especially don’t want to see older people losing everything. “I’m just trying to claw back what I lost to pay everything off, by the end of next year I was expecting to be retired with my mortgage paid off.” Dave, formerly of Washington, first met Reid in the 80s when he was running Washington Mortgage Centre, at The Galleries, Washington.

And it wasn’t until Dave’s ex-wife visited the branch in Washington and found it closed that alarm bells started to ring. Today TLW Solicitors are providing legal advice for Dave.

Peter McKenna, of TLW, said:

“Mr Scholey has lost thousands through being caught up in this callous scam. Unfortunately he is not alone and we are currently acting for many others who, on the advice of so called professionals, have lost savings or remortgaged their homes to invest in schemes which promised high returns but ultimately just resulted in the money disappearing.

“People in these situations often think there is nothing they can do and the money is simply gone, however this may not be the case. I would urge anyone who this has happened to or is concerned the may be the victim of a scam to seek legal advice immediately.”

As he was jailed at Newcastle Crown Court this year close friends branded him “greedy, callous and cold-hearted”. The court heard police had passed a file on him to the CPS in 2003 but a decision was made not to take any action against him. That allowed him to continue defrauding people for another ten years, while running Washington Mortgage Centre, at The Galleries, Washington.

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