Financial services has long attracted fraudsters. It is an arena where charm, confidence and jargon can be used to great effect to bamboozle and rip off unsuspecting people.
Where the individual or firm they represent is regulated, there are avenues of recourse victims can pursue.
But it’s a different story when the adviser is unregulated, as was the case for Amber Waheed, a businesswoman living in Dubai.
After winning her case, Waheed has written a book, The Great Fraud Fightback, to document her journey and offer a roadmap to help others navigate similarly complex legal cases.
Speaking ahead of the launch of her book later this week, Waheed said: “Financial fraud is a very sophisticated crime, and most people are not quite sure how they have been scammed.
“This book reveals the plots and traps, his partners, legal loopholes and technicalities.”
Appeal denied
Waheed invested the equivalent of $80,000 (£58,206, €66,391) into funds she thought were low risk at the recommendation of her financial adviser, Neil Grant of Prosperity Management Consultancy.
But Grant invested the money in riskier alternatives that generated large commissions for himself.
Waheed was one of several clients to suffer substantial loss.
Despite Prosperity being unregulated, Waheed said the regulators in the UAE proved incredibly helpful and were instrumental in her legal victory.
Grant maintains that the case against him was the result of an ‘administrative matter’, but the Dubai criminal courts determined otherwise and charged him with offering financial advice without a licence.
A fine was imposed in August 2017.
Grant appealed, but it was upheld in the Supreme Court of Justice in Dubai.
In the civil case that followed, a judge ordered Grant to pay back the $80,000 plus costs.
