ANTI-PONZI SCHEME ACTIVIST ROWENA JAMES HAS RECEIVED A DEATH THREAT

Dear Readers,

          As if a death threat was not enough Rowena James has also been maliciously maligned on Facebook. In addition she says she has evidence that indicates that the statement she gave to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (The Hawks) was leaked to the very people she is complaining about.

          All this is because this 51 year old divorcee has been extolling the aims of a pack of 400 people that is growing daily determined to hunt down Malcolm De Beer the master mind behind the Coin-It and CommEx ponzi schemes. Coin-It alone is estimated to have taken 27 000 people for something like R2.5 billion.

          Rowena herself was a victim of Coin-It, although her R60 000 loss was perhaps one of the smallest amounts among this huge number of people, who put their faith in Coin-It before it was closed by the Financial Service Conduct Authority (FSCA).

          She antagonised the Dundee, KwaZule-Natal promoters when she started an on-line Facebook Group headed: Coin-It and CommEx – The Truth. This was to encourage investors to co-operate with the Hawks investigators brought in by the FSCA.

          “I believe what really sent them over the edge was the action FSCA took and the serving of papers on Malcolm to appear in the Pietermaritzburg High court this week,” she told me.

          “Our group have each put in R350 to employ a firm of attorneys and the advocate they have appointed will be making an application to liquidated Coin-It in the hope that we can recover money for the investors. Many pensions, retrenchment packages and life savings have gone, not to mention the money from those who took personal loans to finance their investments.

          “They are from all over the country, mostly from KwaZulu-Natal with some from the Western and Eastern Cape and Polokwane.”

          In a press release issue by the FSCA to update Coin-It investors it stated that it had become aware that Coin-It was trying to get its investors to have their contracts transferred to other associated companies.

          It warned them not to enter into any financial arrangements with unauthorised entities associated with Coin-It.

          The FSCA launched an investigation in August into Coin-It and CommEx Minerals for suspected breaches of financial sector laws. This involved a search and seizure operation of the Dundee premises of these firms followed by the opening of a case with the Hawks for further investigation. The Asset Forfeiture Unit had also obtained a preservation order against bank accounts linked to the parties being investigated.

          “Neither Coin-It or CommEx nor its directors Mr Michael Andrew Anthony de Beer (Coin-It) and Mrs Patricia Ursula de Beer (CommEx) are licensed to conduct any financial services or to receive deposits from the public,” the statement added. Mrs Patricia Ursula De Beer is the ex-wife of Malcolm Henry de Beer, the founder of Coin-It and still the person running the its day to day operations. 

                                 (Heartless Sunday Times)                    

          Some weeks ago on Facebook Sibonelo Khulu Coin-It’s Brand manager described Rowena as a “racist who is scavenging on black people’s bloods.” He maintained that being “fully paid up after her 3 year circle with Coin-It she is busy misleading them with all sorts of nonsensical updates so they won’t become rich like herself.” He blamed her for complaining to the FSCA and called her “a heartless racist.”

          In her reply on Facebook Rowena included copies of the contracts for the two trucks she bought and stated that she would be happy to receive a R400 000 cash settlement for them as she suspected they did not exist.

          “The person who originated the complaint to FSCA was from Cape Town,” she continued. “I’m from Durban so that’s yet another thumb suck you have spread. Like a good citizen I have given the FSCA and the Hawks my full cooperation.

          “Mr Khulu you obviously know that these investors you have successfully misled and still are misleading will soon be locking you away as you have a lot to answer for.”

          She told me she had been alarmed on the evening of 24 October when she discovered that Sibonelo, known as Khulu the Man on social media, had distributed her home address with two voice notes in Zulu. The first one was from an unknown woman who asked for her address as she knew people in Durban who wanted to teach Rowena a lesson. And the second one was death threat.

          “Almost as alarming was the fact that he was distributing copies of the statement I made to the Commercial Crime Unit in Durban,” she said.

          She has lodged a complaint about this to the prosecuting authorities in Pietermaritzburg and it has been passed to the Serious Commercial Crimes Unit.

          “It’s clear that this case has now been compromised and my life is in danger.” she stated.

          Attached to her complaint were screen shots of what she says were copies of her statement that Khulu distributed on social media.

          Rowena was not the originator of the group that wants to liquidate Coin-It. She heard about it on WhatsApp and decided to join it.

          Regards,

          Jon, a Consumer Watchdog who believes not enough is being done by our enforcement agencies to ensure that the crooks behind these ponzi schemes end up in jail for a long time. And if you can’t trust the police, even at the highest level, it becomes very scary.

P.S. Rowena is to be congratulated for really sticking her neck out by taking a stand against these shysters, especially in the social media jungle where just about anything goes. Too many people complain bitterly about something, but when the time comes to stand up to be counted they are nowhere to be found.

(Feisty Rowena James)

P.P.S. The money Coin-It investors paid was supposed to have bought them trucks to earn them an impressive return on their investments, but all the indications were that these didn’t exist. CommEx was structured in much the same way only this time it involved the buying and selling of various minerals. 

     

ROWENA JAMES - THE FEISTY PONZI SCHEME SURVIVOR

Dear Readers,

          This is Rowena’s story of how she threatened to further expose Ponzi scheme crooks on Facebook unless they paid her up to date. And they did when nobody else was getting their money.

“It was way over my head and I was fighting this battle solo on the advice of a complete stranger. To be honest I was getting excited at the idea that an ex-housewife was caught up in this surreal life of crooks, scoundrels and just plain shady characters,” she told me.  

She had invested in two Coin-It trucks hoping to solve her financial woes after she heard the company was promising investors an up to a 200% return on their money in just three years.
PONZI SCHEMES SCANDAL - SUNDAY TIMES ADVERTISES THEM & GIVES THEM EDITORIAL PROTECTION FOR DOING THIS

          At the age of 51 Rowena had just got a R640 000 divorce settlement, which she invested with Sanlam in 2015. That was more than enough, you would think, for her to start a new chapter in her troubled life.

          It began badly. Our crime riddled society caught up with her. She had loaded some furniture she had bought into her new little car only to be robbed by five men. They took all the furniture; crashed her Getz into the driveway gate and went off with her phone and handbag as well. The only good thing was that although she was badly traumatised she was completely uninjured. 

          Durban based Rowena had to withdraw R30 000 of her money to repair the damage to her car and to cover some other expenses.

          She had no house of her own as it had been sold when her marriage broke up with the proceeds being divided between her and her ex.

          “I had been a housewife for most of our married life so I don’t have a very good CV,” she continued. “Plus I’m not at the best age to be job hunting.”

          While she was still married she had a nervous breakdown. This she believes was because she was so “wrapped up in my own suffering” that she didn’t pay enough attention to her two sons now aged 34 and 30.

          The eldest is married and works as salesman.

          After her divorce she has had to support her other son. He has some disabilities but is studying bookkeeping and works part time driving for an organisation that sells flowers and teddy bears at night clubs for charity.

          Rowena has also taken his girlfriend and their two year old child under her wing.

          “She lost her job when the tea room she worked for changed hands around the time my grandchild was born. They are both wonderful parents and are actively seeking employment so as to provide for their son.”

          She spent some of her money on courses that she hoped would improve her employment prospects, but none of them worked out successfully.

          Disheartened she found she could not make ends meet on the R4 000 a month she was getting from her Sanlam investment.

          That’s when her brother told her about somebody, who bought trucks and
then leased them back to the company. So she withdrew her money from Sanlam and paid Coin-It a R210 000 deposit on her first truck. This was one of the companies run by members of the De Beer family

          “For the first 16 months I was going to be paid R21 687.50 and then I would have effectively paid off the truck. Thereafter I would be paid R37 500 per month for use of the vehicle to the end of the 36 month agreement.”

          This was towards the end of 2017. The value of the 2006 Man truck and tipper trailer was given in the agreement she signed as R440 000.  

          “After the first month’s payment came through I decided to get another truck for a total price of R140 000. For the first 16 months I was to get R15 468.75 a month and thereafter R30 250.”

          The truck this time was a 1999 Peterbilt 362, also with a tipper trailer.

          “For the first 16 months everything went smoothly. I got my payments on time. On the 17^th of January 2019 when I was supposed to have paid off my first truck I got the usual R21 687.50 instead of R37 500.”

At this stage she was still well and truly hooked. “I had wanted to start saving the extra amount to buy another truck since each contract only ran for three years. So I phoned the guy who had signed me up. He told me he had had the same trouble with his, and when he inquired about it Coin-It had informed him that they had made a mistake on the contracts and the repayment period was supposed to have been 18 months.

“It was the first inkling I had that something was wrong. By this time my best friend had decided to get a truck too, because mine had been doing so well.”

CoinIT's Dundee premises that is believed to have contained
        some trucks but I was not able to establish whether they were
           just for show or the ones the investors were supposed to have got 

Her friend received her payments regularly for five months and after that they were both having payment problems. They were given all kinds of dubious reasons for this. So Rowena found some Facebook Coin-It groups.

“One had in excess of 4200 members and the other nearly 2000. The larger one had quite an aggressive admin so I didn’t post anything there. I got lots of information from that group though.”

She did however post a comment on the smaller group asking if anyone was still awaiting payment. What followed was a revelation that is so typical of the tremendous damage that Ponzi schemes like this can do to so many lives.

“Pretty soon I had a long list of comments; people were worried about being evicted, some had loan repayments that were due, school fees etc,” she continued.

“Once in a while a person would post that they had received a payment, and the rest of us would feel a little more hopeful. Coin-It told us to request a letter via email explaining to our debtor’s that our payments would be late. I did apply for one, and to date I have not received it.

“So I posted to the group that my landlord laughed at my letter that Coin-It never sent. The next day I received a payment. I also received a stern warning from the group admin not to be so negative on my posts. My friend, who does not go on social media, had still not received any payments.

“About this time I was contacted by a person, who wishes to remain anonymous. He told me that these scams were all run by the De Beers and that I was caught up in a Ponzi scheme. He advised me to make as much noise on the Facebook groups as possible and demand my payments. By now my rational side was kicking in. I realised there were no trucks.

“Then I got advice from yet another total stranger. He told me the De Beers are bullies and if they threatened me with legal action I should let him know. He was watching my posts and their reaction.

The De Beer family is a lot happier than most of their investors.
          Here they have just received the 2018 Mayor of Umzinyathee's
       (Dundee) special award for contributions to sport in the area. At the
 time they were said be from Cosmic Transport

After posting more questions on the groups they started checking so she realised she would have to start her own group.

“Within two days my page which was entitled: ‘Is Coin-It under investigation?’ received more than 200 views. My group grew to over 100 members in two days. It was posting links to other De Beer scams like Commex and Maningi (something to do with upmarket clothing).

“I received a lawyer’s letter telling me to remove my defamatory posts or they would institute legal action. I contacted my online buddy and asked for his help in penning a response. He obliged and I typed it up, not understanding one word of it, and sent it back. I was told in reply that if I improved my posts and took down my page I would receive my payment. I retorted that I would remove my posts and page in return for full, up to date payment.

“Within an hour, R106 000 was deposited into my account. Two days later investigators from the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) and the Hawks swooped and seized computers from the De Beer’s premises.

“The September payment that I was promised is overdue and I did not receive any papers for my trucks and trailers.”

This hush money she was paid did not work as far as these shysters were concerned. Her statement is with the Serious Commercial Crimes Unit and she has given the FSCA copies of her contracts.

Rowena ended her email to me with this: “During all this I have been working alongside people I may never meet, heard heart wrenching stories about the very poor, who took their retrenchment packages and invested just before this scheme crashed. Their hopes and dreams dashed in a moment. These De Beers from Dundee seriously need to be stopped. There are still thousands of investors that believe the lies that they are being fed.

“Please help spread the truth.”

Rowena was extremely lucky. It was a close call that she did not lose a lot more than she did. This was probably because she was one of the earliest investors and more importantly because she fought so courageously to get what was due to her. She made just R62 929. He deposits, plus installments came to R900 687 and she was paid R837 758.

No doubt she’s back to struggling to make ends meet while the De Beers are rolling in money.

Rowena deserves the highest praise for sticking her neck out to help take these heartless charlatans down. When she initially emailed me she did not want her name mentioned. But she agreed to let me use it after I explained that I don’t quote nameless people, except in very exceptional circumstance, because they don’t have much validity. Anybody can thumb suck a great story about an anonymous person.

Regards,

Jon

P.S. Rowena’s story is what the Sunday Times should have printed instead of helping these Ponzi schemers to spread a lot more misery. It’s hard to think of worse double standards than an investigative newspaper that exposes other people’s short comings every week, while promoting Ponzi schemes in its advertisements.