Comments can be sent to us at irnist23@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
This Blog is dedicated to making public some of the business activities and methods of Liam Collins, David Bone Jr and their associates. In the spring of 2010, the present authors invested in Collins & Bone (C&B), who were offering an enticing 8-10% interest on the basis of buying houses for cash, renovating them and letting them out to students. We were assured that our money was secured against houses that they owned, including their own homes and the properties held by their associated company, Castle & Gatehouse (C&G). We have emails and brochures that confirm these details, as do others who invested on this same basis at around the same time. The idea worked for us for over a year, then in November 2011 they told us they were insolvent. They refused our every request for clear accounts, which led us to suspect wrongdoing. We began an investigation and then started this Blog. We found our suspicions confirmed: other investors had lost sometimes quite large amounts to C&B and its predecessor CBS, and all requests for repayment were adamantly refused. These people use and have used so many names that we found it necessary to compress them into CoBo (for Collins & Bone) and Coboco (for the whole bunch of them – there are quite a few!) Note that there is an index in the margin at the right hand side.

Wednesday 27 June 2012

DAVID BONE JR POSTPONES PUBLIC EXAMINATION

This is just a note to let all CoBo's investors know that David Bone Jr has obtained a postponement of his interview with the Public Examiner until 10th July on the grounds that he had a work contract which he did not want to break. Was this perchance a gig with Faces of Disco? 

Liam Collins's appointment is for 3rd July.

It is high time these two had to answer for all the trouble and misery they have caused, but their lifestyle to date has been based squarely upon postponement and evasion, so it shows every sign of being a rather long haul to get to the reckoning. In the meantime, they are raking in cash from their performances. It is highly unlikely—isn't it?—that they are keeping any account of the money that the public throws at them and as for tax, well they have never been too bothered about keeping up to date with that either. It's amazing that they are still being allowed to get away with all this; the chaotic state of modern Britain just might have something to do with it! 

Saturday 23 June 2012

JUSTICE, FAIR PLAY AND ... COBOCO

What most of all distinguishes a civilized society from the many societies that are in various stages of collapse and disorder? Top of the list must surely be the Rule of Law, happily married to Fair Play. British society is renowned for its exceptionally good justice system; criminal practices and all kinds of foul play meet their nemesis sooner or later in the courts and the subsequent dispensations. 

Coboco have consistently shown a hubristic contempt for the law of this Land: there are examples in earlier posts on this blog. As noted heretofore, many people have obtained County Court judgements against them, which  they have ignored—in the full knowledge that such judgements are expensive and time-consuming to enforce, so that most people will soon become exhausted with it all and will ultimately write off their loss as a bad debt. Which left Coboco free to continue obtaining money by various forms of deception.

Coboco have been quite cynically unscrupulous about whom they targeted for funds, whether it was people who'd saved money for their retirement or had redundancy payments, people who needed more money to live on and who thought the rate of interest offered by Coboco would provide it or whether it was students, sometimes from other countries, most of whom could ill afford to be robbed of the deposits they had handed over to secure somewhere to live for the duration of their courses.

When challenged by anyone whose money they have unfairly or illegally taken, a member of the Coboco group can turn nasty and they habitually pass an enquirer from one member to another, which can go on until the victim is tired out and fed up. We have numerous reports of this sort of thing and there are others published on Facebook.

So, who are these shady people? Who exactly are those we call Coboco? The names of the principals will be familiar to most of those concerned, so the following list entails repetition:-

Coboco are (so far): 

Liam Collins 
David Bone Jr 
Mark Black
David Bone Sr (father of David Jr and of Rachael, uncle of Liam Collins)
Rachael Bone (sister of David Bone Jr)
Patrick Collins (brother of Liam Collins)

No doubt other family members are involved; this Blog does not yet have full details. We do know that all of those mentioned have benefited from investors' money and the rent and deposits that students paid for the various properties Coboco were managing. They have declined to go to the trouble of accounting for it, but will be required to do so in due course. 

We remind readers that CoBo's total debt stands at somewhere around £4 million. They still seem to be living quite comfortably, thanks to investors' funds, though they may have had to cut back on some extravagances.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

THE PUBLIC EXAMINER NEEDS YOUR REPORT!


The Official Receiver (OR) has appointed a Public Examiner (PE) for Liam Collins and David Bone Jr. (CoBo). His contact details are:

Martin Faulkner  
Official Receiver's Office
2nd Floor 
Cunard Building
Pier Head
Liverpool L3 1DS


Anyone who is owed money by Collins and  Bone (CoBo) or whose money was misused or misappropriated by them (including unreturned deposits) can send their details and a full report to the Public Examiner. He would like to receive reports before he interviews CoBo; the first interview is scheduled for 26th June.

NB  The OR should already have in his possession details of all Collins & Bone PN holders, so they do not have to send them to the PE; however, any reports they wish to make regarding misuse of their funds, misrepresentation and/or mis-selling by CoBo would be useful to him.

Sunday 17 June 2012

PUZZLEMENT PRACTICE

To begin the week, Jasmine offers readers a little light diversion in the form of a dedicated Coboco crossword. A mystery prize goes to the first correct entry sent to irnist23@gmail.com


CLUES:

Entries must be in by midday on 27th June, after which the completed crossword will be published.

NB  The mystery prize is not available to members of the IFS Team nor to Coboco and Associates.

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27th June 2012. Well, says Jasmine, here is my completed crossword, for those interested. I hope you enjoyed having a go.




Tuesday 5 June 2012

NOVOCASTRIA, MARK BLACK & MISSING DEPOSITS

Here's a recent post on Facebook in the page on Getting Our Diggs Deposits Back:

The house on which Gem and her friends put a deposit is 41 Albert Street, Preston. Interestingly, in the CoBo property schedule issued to investors it is listed as belonging to Liam Collins and Iqbal Singh, not David Bone Jr. It seems that these names get shuffled about to suit whatever the Coboco group have in mind at the time. They have been doing this, and getting away with it for a number of years. Now at last they are coming under the spotlight.

The directors of Novocastria Lettings are listed as Mark Black and David Bone Senior. Rachael Bone managed the office. We want to know why Novocastria Lettings took a deposit in February 2012 for September of this year when they all knew that Liam Collins and David Bone Jr would almost certainly be bankrupt well before that month. The deposits were paid  into Novocastria Lettings bank account. We want to know what happened to that money.

In the Castle & Gatehouse brochure, it says of Mark Black "He holds a Law Degree, MBA and studied Real Estate at Harvard Business School.*" In view of which, he must surely know that according to the Law of this Land, tenants' deposits must be held in [1] a special government-registered account or [2] in an insured account, so that tenants' money is not at risk in the event of business failure.

There are serious irregularities here and it has been noted by many people that each named person of the group that we call Coboco characteristically evades responsibility towards those people whose money they have taken, whether they are investors or students.  

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* Would that be the one in Penzance, perchance?