Greenwood Investments

J

Jane1

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I have split these posts from a thread on Vineyards

Hi Mcaul,
I'm trying to look at the thread link you posted on greenwood investments but it won't allow me. A friend asked me what I thought of the investment just yesterday as he has a deposit down to buy land to harvest trees in Canada over a 10yr period. Any info would be great.

Jane1.
 
Re: Vineyard Investment

Jane....I got a call from this company, Greenwood Investments, on Paddy's Day (so alarm bells immediately rang!). I asked them to post out info, which they were very reluctant to do, kept trying to get us to go to website.
Info arrived - very unprofessional looking (basic word doc, not well edited, company reg number no longer seemed valid, address was just our town-no number or street name etc)
Got a phone call from a guy & after quizzing him for about 15 mins about who they were and where they got their details from, he got the hump and said "it's a working day and he needed to go & make some money".
Inappropriate comment deleted
 
Re: Vineyard Investment

There is a Business name Green Wood Investments registered with the CRO. It is not a limited company.

( A company called Greenwood Investments Limited was dissolved back in 1998. I don’t see any connection between it and the trading name Green Wood Investments)

The website is [broken link removed]

I can’t find any information on the website to indicate who is behind it. There may or may not be a limited company behind it.

Investing in woodland or wines is an unregulated activity and so I would recommend caution in dealing with them.

And as there is no information about the people behind the name, I would recommend against having anything to do with them.

As they are operating from what appears to be a serviced office, then I would recommend against having anything to do with them.

Update - the business seems to be owned by the same person behind Vineyards Direct which has come in for criticism before on Askaboutmoney.

Brendan
 
I saw this company mentioned on another thread (about vineyard investments) and the name sounded familiar,so I checked my irish forestry services newsletter received today.

Perhaps this has already been mentioned on the site but i couldn't find it.

Irish forestry say: "shareholders have contacted us to say they have been approached by...Greenwood investments... We have absolutely no association with Greenwood.... and (they) should be treated with EXTREME CAUTION"
 
There is a link between vineyards direct and greenwood investments at that address in that they are both owned by a Mr. Benjamin Taylor. (different registered addresses for Mr. Taylor, but same date of birth)

A company search on Green Wood Investments lists Mr. Taylor 's address at a very similar address (bar one letter, probably a typo on the Vineyards Direct Website) to the UK Contact address for Vineyards Direct. A search on Vineyards Direct lists a different UK residential address for the owner, Mr. Taylor.
 
Re: Vineyard Investment

Brendan said:
It has been suggested in a separate thread that this is the same company as VineYard Investments, but apart from the same address, there is no other connection.


Brendan
Click to expand...

Sorry, have made a hames of this post. See post above outlining the same owner of both Vineyards Direct and Greenwood Investments. Is there a Vineyard Investments too? Also, if Mr. Taylor is one and the same, he should be listed at the same residential address for both business names.

Also, the contact telephone and fax numbers numbers listed on the Registration Forms for both Green Wood Investments and Vineyards Direct are the same UK Numbers

Note:

The attached is from the CRO Website in respect of the information that needs to be displayed on any issued correspondence.
2.4.2 What information must be shown on documents on which the business name
appears?
In all business letters, circulars and catalogues on or in which the business name appears, and which
are sent by the owner of the business name to any person, the following must be legibly stated in
relation to the owner:
• in the case of an individual, his/her present name, any former names, and his/her nationality,
if not Irish
• in the case of a firm, the present name and any former names, and the nationality, if not Irish, of
all the partners in the firm, or in the case of a body corporate being a partner, the corporate name
• in the case of a body corporate (other than a company registered under the Companies Acts),
the full name of the company (note that the only permitted abbreviation is “Ltd” for Limited, “PLC”
for “Public Limited Company” etc.), the names and any former names of the directors, and their
nationality, if not Irish

To the original poster...I can't believe that anyone has handed over a deposit without checking out any details, ie who owned the business, trading record and history, experience in business,

Has anyone checked with the person calling them if these business are tax registered?
 
According to today's [broken link removed], the Data Protection Commissioner is investigating Greenwood for cold calling people after receiving a "significant number" of complaints.

The Commissioner contacted "the British company" asking them to stop and they complied immediately.

Ben Taylor of Greenwood told The Irish Times that the company was contacted by a marketing company which offered to generate leads for it. "When Ireland's data protection people contacted me...I immediately stopped the marketing company's campaign. I am about to take legal advice about this marketing company and I would rather not reveal their name at present".

What I find interesting about this is that the Irish Times describes it as "a British company". As there is no information on the site about who is behind it, it's easy to see how The Irish Times can make this mistake. It's also easy to see how posters on Askaboutmoney and boards.ie mix up Ben Taylor with companies of similar names.
 
It is just registration of a business name for Mr. Taylor and not a limited company in any way shape or form.

The paper trail by Greenwood/Vineyard Investments are not mirror images, so unless you searched by date of birth of the individuaol you might not necessarily get matches.

Mr. Taylor should be requested by CRO to
1. Amend his personal details on "all" his business names with CRO so that the details match (a) Registered Address (b) Nationality
2. Amend his website on Vineyards Direct so that the registered address is fully correct (even one letter differing might not link to the correct info.) on some searches. One thing I am not sure about is if a website is required to show up the personal details of the owner of the business name. If that is the case, both Greenwood and Vineyards websites need revision.
3. Any correspondence, catalogues, etc. issued by Greenwood should show Mr. Taylors details(not sure about websites though)

It is also interesting to note that Director of Corporate Enforcement does not deal with business names and all recourse for complaints are through CRO, whom I would think have a lot less powers in dealing with complaints.

Registration of business name does not give limited liability, business names do not have to lodge accounts with CRO. Again the paper trail here would be very scant.

I am very surprised however, that the Times did not report correctly on the irish business name as opposed to "british company". UK Companies office searches do not show an exact match for Mr. Taylor to that as lodged with CRO. However, it would appear there is a UK Company Vineyards Direct UK Limited of which Mr. Taylor with the same dob is a director. Mr. Taylors address almost matches that on CRO in Ireland, however one line would appear to be omitted, perhaps that should be amended so both databases are an exact match too. Perhaps this is the UK Company to which the article refers.

Does anyone know if anybody actually handed over any funds to Greenwood Investments?

My understanding and having read the Irish Times article and posts on another forum is that Greenwoods "marketing company" may appear to have been working from shareholders lists lodged on Annual Returns with CRO for say, IFS.

I wonder did Mr. Taylor give the name of the "marketing company" to the Data protection commissioner.
 
Greenwood Management: some type of forestry unit scheme?

Saw a feature on the above firm in todays Sunday Business Post.The feature was regarding investing in some type of forestry unit scheme.

Does anybody have any experience of them or comments on same ?

Westgolf.
 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

I am always very sceptical of "reports" in the Sunday Business Post. I maybe wrong, but i believe that these types of reports are more a form of advertising than the paper investigating the said company....
 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

daves said:
I am always very sceptical of "reports" in the Sunday Business Post. I maybe wrong, but i believe that these types of reports are more a form of advertising than the paper investigating the said company....
Click to expand...

Indeed. It should say 'Commercial Feature' at the top of the page if it is, but if it is all positive, and only one company is mentioned, then read between the lines...
 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

Hi I work for Greenwood Management,

I came across this post I have already answered some additional questions raised by other interested readers in this room here:
> http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=787849 : Investing in 'Brazilian Eucalyptus' i.e charcoal

If any readers would like to know more then I will be happy to try to answer your questions, so please feel free to ask me anything in relation to Greenwood Management.

In response to the article in the Sunday Business post I have not seen this article, but I do understand that we paid for an advert in this publication last week.

I understand that a separate reporter from the Sunday Business Post also contacted the office with a number of questions about the company and that she had an interest in writing an editorial piece about us to run alongside the advert however this article itself was not paid for by Greenwood Management. I think it is important for readers to understand on this point that the reporter would probably have not decided “coincidently” to approach the company in order to write this article if Greenwood Management had decided not to approach the paper in the first place to advertise.

Greenwood Management like many other companies do issue press release’s in order to get interest from reporters as this is a good way to generate revenue, there are a number of genuine “independent” articles written about the company that readers should find on the internet regarding Greenwood Management.

I will also try to supply on request independent data in order to give a balanced discussion.

 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

Hi

Take your point about the press releases and all of that.

A couple of questions for you.

What happened to Greenwood Investments. I can't see the Business name on CRO any longer. They were intending setting up a limited company here in Ireland. Did that happen.

What happened to the people who invested in Green Wood Investments. How are their returns doing. There has to be some results now, and why is Greenwood Management doing the same thing?

A search of green wood investments and boards.ie throws up a very interesting thread. An employee of Greenwood Investments stated that there was going to be a full time operation in Ireland in Cork by last July. What is the current status of that.

On the website for Greenwood Managment Limited, it does not give the CRO number, which has to be on the website under Company law(if it is an Irish Company) Maybe it is a UK Company - can you let us have the registered number?

A search of the CRO shows up a Greenwood Management Company (in Limerick) but this is not the same company.

It might also help if you were able to give us a breakdown of the personnel of the Company and their experience of Forestry.


Greenwood Investments were being investigated by the Data protection Commissioner last year (what was the outcome) and IFS issued a warning against them. It was reported in the Irish Independant that IFS took out an injunction against Greenwood Investments to stop them contacting people on their shareholder lists. Is this correct.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/mike65/Forrestgreenwood.jpg

On the thread you have linked to above Sierra was contacted by he/she had investments with IFF. This is the exact same reason why Greenwood Investments was investigated by the Data Protection Commissioner. I would urge Sierra to contact the Data Protection Commissioner if that is the case. I note you were interested too in how Sierra had been contacted which may be illegal and I hope you resolve the issue.
 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

Hi I have tried to answer the questions posed for me here MandaC if you need me to elaborate on any point please ask me.


Q1) “What happened to Greenwood Investments. The website is now down? I can't see the Business name on CRO.”
A2) Green Wood Investments is still running the website it is at the same address www.greenwood-investments.com this is the website for the agent that is representing Greenwood Management in Ireland this is a registered trading name of the agent and I will forward the registration number for you tomorrow (it should still be the same number).

Q2) “What happened to the people who invested in Green Wood Investments. How are their returns doing.”
A2) It is still early days (trees do not grow incredibly fast) however the reports from the independent forester should be issued by June and these will of course outline the whole process these will be added to the website. For clients who have purchased forestry sites from through us we act as an agent, much the same as any other property. I will try and get some pictures for you of the plantations posted over the next day or two.

Q3) “On the website for Greenwood Managment Limited, it does not give the CRO number, which has to be on the website under Company law(if it is an Irish Company)
A search of the CRO shows up a Greenwood Management Company (in Limerick) but this is not the same company.”
A4) No you will not have an Irish CRO number as Greenwood Management is a Danish ApS company and not an Irish entity. We do however have registered entities and financial advisors in many countries acting as agents for Greenwood Management. These companies will have their own registration numbers.
Q4 It might also help if you were able to give us a breakdown of the personnel of the Company and their experience of Forestry.
A4 No problem I will get a full list done for you over the next few days.

Q5 “Greenwood Investments were being investigated by the Data protection Commissioner last year (what was the outcome).”
A5 There has been no court action between the data protection commissioner and our agent. An investigation by them should have unearthed the required evidence to take this to court to prove wrong doing and this would of been shown in the decision of the courts. Indecently I find it incredible that the Data Protection Commissioner decided to contact a reporter on the subject of a preliminary investigation. I would presume that they probably have to make a large number of preliminary enquires about companies on a daily basis?
Q6 “and IFS issued a warning against them. It was reported in the Irish Independent that IFS took out an injunction against Greenwood Investments to stop them contacting people on their shareholder lists. Is this correct.”
A7 I find it equally amazing that a reporter from the Irish Independant would have the time to go to court to watch an "interim injuction" proceeding regarding an individual who may or may not of marketed a number of other individuals until a court date was set to determine if this was indeed the case? I think that it is early days and not right of me to comment on this at this stage. I would suggest however that any wrong doing by the agent to either IFS or their shareholders will be settled by the court decision and I should imagine that the findings of the jury will be anounced in due course.
Q8 On the thread you have linked to above Sierra was contacted by he/she had investments with IFF. This is the exact same reason why Greenwood Investments was investigated by the Data Protection Commissioner. I would urge Sierra to contact the Data Protection Commissioner if that is the case. I note you were interested too in how Sierra had been contacted which may be illegal and I hope you resolve the issue.
A8 We only deal with incoming enquires and as such we have Opt in applications for marketing our products. And an extensive database detailing the source of our incoming enquires. If Sierra would like to contact me privately I will trace the source for her in order to help with her complaint should she wish to take this further.
I hope this helps answer your questions but please feel free to ask me anything else you need clarification on MandaC.

 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

Hi lads

More information in 6 posts/responses than I would find out in a fortnight !!

Thanks again,

Westgolf
 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

Thanks for clarifying.

Just wondering what happened to the Irish Business Name Greenwood Investments registered to Mr. Benjamin Taylor. I cant find that name any longer under a Companies Office Search here in Ireland. That is quite worrying, given that it was only registered last year and is no longer live. Is Mr. Taylor involved with Greenwood Management too?
 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

I will try to get the copy of the registration for you tomorrow from the CRO if it helps.
PS its Benjamin Taylor T/A Green Wood Investments and yes he is still an agent for Greenwood Management.
 
Re: Greenwood Management ??

Greenwood said:
I will try to get the copy of the registration for you tomorrow from the CRO if it helps.
PS its Benjamin Taylor T/A Green Wood Investments and yes he is still an agent for Greenwood Management.
Click to expand...

No, its fine...I was actually searching for Greenwood as opposed to Green Wood. There are actually two of them, it seems to be registered twice under different numbers!
 
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