I would appreciate your comments and legal help regarding this e-mail I received today from so-called friend:
Hi xxxxxxx,
Just thought you would like to know this advice that we have been given recently.
After much correspondence with various bodies it now turns out that even if Bank Negara manages to recoup part of peoples monies we will not be entitle to any.
This is due to 2 reasons:
1/ Had we dealt direct with PIPS they would never had processed the transaction. As NO new transactions were accepted from early January. (Meaning we would not have lost a penny).
2/ As all our payments were made to you we have no contract with PIPS binding or otherwise.
Also PIPS was actually illegal in this country as it wasn't licensed with the appropriate authorities so should have not have been traded in this country by anyone.
With all these things being taken into consideration we have been ADVISED to issue a 30 days notice to you for the return of funds, or take court action if not resolved by then. Also to pass all payment information to the FSA and the Inland Revenue as these organisations are now investigating peoples association with PIPS and people profiting from selling units of this scam.
This only came about due to the fact that we had to remortgage to clear the credit cards and loan that we took out for PIPS. Which has also meant that I have now had to go back to full time working rather than part-time to cover the new mortgage payments.
Both our solicitor and accountant have advised similar action due to us not having received anything for our money and not being able to recoup this money any other way and also being liable for it on our accounts as we have no proof of what £3500+ was used for.