Depositors of collapsed Fund Management Companies (FMCs) have defied caution from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to stop patronizing the services of PBAY Ltd – a firm claiming to be able to facilitate payments of locked-up funds of investors of the 53 collapsed FMCs.
The regulatory body in a press release on Wednesday, November 4, noted that PBAY Ltd for one, had not been duly registered by the Registrar-General’s Department and had also not been authorized to facilitate payments of locked funds by either the Official Liquidator or by SEC itself.
SEC therefore warned the general public and particularly the affected investors to not to patronise the activities of PBAY Ltd but rather submit claims and supporting documentation only to publicly announced and designated persons in accordance with statutory notices issued or published by the RGD or SEC.
Adding that, anyone who disregard SEC’s warning does so at his or her own risk.
But SEC’s warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears, as aggrieved customers of the collapsed FMCs continue to engage the services of PBAY Ltd.
The continuous engagement of the services of PBAY Ltd was confirmed by the Secretary of the Coalition for the aggrieved customers of the 53 collapsed fund management companies, Joseph Aryeetey, while commenting on the recent caution note from the SEC.
He noted that despite the caution from SEC, the Coalition is hopeful the company which claims to have connections in government will help them retrieve their locked up funds at a fee of 2 per cent.
Actually, the management of PBAY approached us; some of the customers. And you know PBAY is supposed to be a debt collecting company so they actually gave us a proposal which indicated that they can assist the customers in general. What they want to do for us is that, they will charge us a fee to also defray their cost in terms of going through the process. According to them the fee is going to be 2% of your total money that you will retrieve at the end of the day. Our lawyers are currently engaging the lawyers of PBAY to really make sure that we tidy up all the loose ends at the end of the day
Frankly speaking, we are also aware of the issue raised by the Securities and Exchange Commission saying that their checks with the Registrar General indicates that PBAY is not duly registered. We have actually informed our lawyers about this. As we speak, PBAY has given us their registration certificate from the Registrar General and from what we see on the papers, it means they are duly registered,
Mr Ayeetey stated.
Director-General of SEC, Reverend Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, reacting to news of customers of defunct FMCs still engaging the services of PBAY Ltd stated that his outfit will continue to work with law enforcement agencies to protect investors from fraudulent companies like PBAY Limited.
But norvanreports believe that, members of the Coalition still engaging PBAY Ltd are depositors of the remaining 21 FMCs to who liquidation orders and bailout packages have not been granted.
As readers will recall, norvanreports on October 8, 2020 reported that the Official Liquidator of the 53 FMCs had begun payments to clients of 22 out of the 53 FMCs.
It appears that clients of the remaining 21 FMCs are willing to do anything to retrieve their locked funds including disregarding warnings by SEC, warnings that could help and prevent them from losing more monies.
