Kevin Foster Found Guilty

Thanks Alan

An interesting one to be sure. I had a very entertaining evening several years ago that brought me into contact with one of the big promoters of the Concept, one of the very early members and close confidant of Foster himself.

Id only recently met the woman who was to become SWMBO and went to a ball in South Wales where the individual concerned was on our table and some of the others had "invested" in the Concept. I must admit I had a whale of time as he sang the merits of the Concept and the wonderful returns on offer, backed up by some present who had already "seen" their initial money rise 500% - of course, they had rolled over the money (and more, lots more - I later learned to my horror). Some had even had use of the famous Ferrari for a weekend (so it must be true!).

This was at the time when the freezing order had just been obtained and I had great fun listening to the spokesman explaining how it was a "fit up" and that "they have nothing to go on - its all legit and we will enjoy suing them (the FSA)". Incredible to see and hear the lengths and lies these crooks will go to and sadly all too easy to ee how people fall for it. The only sad part of it is that there will be no redress and the second tier or inner circle of Foster's fraud wont be joining him in his cell. Indeed, 7 years maximum is what I hear reported - is that all? 7 years for ruining thousands of people's lives. The US at least has a better of appropriate sentencing (Madoff). Over here I would imagine Foster will probably get a light sentence due to "phsychological" reasons. Pathetic.

Hi Darron,

I'm delighted to see that Kevin Foster has been convicted. Since 2003, I warned that he was a fraudster, but editors removed my comments in fear of the libel laws.

Foster was obviously a crook, a charlatan and a fraud, and I look forward to him meeting "Big Ron" in the showers! ;0)

All the best,

Cliff

Hi Alan

Oh yes, I heard all those excuses. The best was:

"The FSA wants the money to plug the hole in their pension scheme."

The laugh of it was, he knew what I did for a living and still had the brass neck to try and Bull it out and recruit me. Incredible. Easy to see how they managed to convince others.

Credit must also go to JayHoe for his coverage of the KF con cept and his website I feel. A really positive tmf contribution I feel.

Very interesting, but this article is just a rehash of the Wikipedia entry...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Foster_(fraudster)

You know, I'm not a violent or vicious man, but when I read about people like Kevin Foster, I really do think about bringing back the concept of the treadmill, picking oakum, and hard labour - and much longer sentences for white collar crime which can ruin lives just as comprehensively as a serious physical assault.

I'm not sure that the threat of spending the rest of your live breaking rocks in Reading Gaol would deter fraudsters, but at least their victims could get some revenge, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

hello there

i must say, ive been following the foster case for quite some time now, for years in fact, as many friends were apart of the concept, though even now, having numerous ocasions with such friends who were members to the foster concept, none have complained about not recieving any monies, and furthermore one must question, it does seem that once the services from whom swear to protect became involved, all good went bad to worse? surely things would of stayed good if things were left untouched, i understand these schemes have only a several year life span, so one could question if a con man was to take the money and run, why was he planning to put monies into other buisnesses, for the numerous new members to be paid out, thus one could say 'being true to his word'? my friends never for one moment felt hard done by or cohursted or even left feeling as though they had been targeted, i know in fact their opinion or judgement of foster wasnt at all bad, also i did notice many high profile wins on various things from various 'bookies', i for one giving a more open minded approach, can see how this apparent scheme could of worked and thus being true to its word, i understand from friends who too, have won on gambling, you can not tax such winnings? delving in closer, if there are repetitive winnings of large sums of monies? surely that being one small part amoungst many buisness ventures i have read foster persued, that there could be slightly more to this then just your average scheme? i leave those who read this to think more in depth... another thing that might humour anyone is the fact, so im informed, foster did with open arms invite many to his home, and i know from friends he wasnt but a call or text away? i did notice that in fact he had several court sessions, including the recently publicised harrow court session where foster was found guilty, though many failed to mention, fosters previous court session, where he actually won, hands down, i attended on numerous days during these sessions as i found it upon myself to find out the truth, why foster went from high to low in mere months, seems to me foster has recieved what one might recall the celebrity treatment, i do question in todays society, our legal system, murderers never recieve the time they should, though when money is involved, one could question the length of some sentenced, justice is a matter of opinion. i for one will not judge another till i have heard both sides, as i feel to every argument, there are two sides. i rest my case.

peace

Hello All (and in particular bond009),

I used to know Kevin Foster around 15-20 years ago and recall that he was not an evil man, but was certainly what might be termed a "Dell Boy" character. I have not been affected by this scheme but can't help but think that perhaps it was a small scale swindle which grew out of Fosters control into a huge mistake. I am certainly not condoning his behaviour, just rather surprised, having known him previously, at its scale. I am therefore rather curious as to what has happened. As I mention I have not seen Kevin Foster for a long time so would not say that I know him now. The News story does not have much depth and the message boards are usually clouded by emotion and opinion. Therefore I have decided to post this message to see if I can get some measured responses from people on both sides. To this end Bond009 certainly seems a sympathizer and I would really like to hear more from yourself. If there is anyone else who is personally involved in the case (and not legally bound to not comment) I would really like to know what happened, and what is likely to happen.

It is clear that for a few select people the experience of dealing with KC concept was a positive one. With large returns on investments over short periods. I agree with the comments of Kurumidza that one should never invest what one can not afford to lose. So by this metric in some cases the decision to invest critical funds into the scheme was a foolish one, as is confirmed in retrospect by may of the people who lost money in this scheme.

The interesting issue here is similar in essence to the banking crisis. Essentially, large short term profits can be made in high risk invest schemes. The real problem exists when the amount of "debt" or payouts required (even to pay back initial investment) becomes much larger than the liquidity in the system. This is why many banks have suffered of late.

Betting companies, as banks stay in business by making money. The laws of probability are general VERY well understood by betting companies and as such they make sure that over all the house usually wins. As to whether someone is to believe that Kevin Foster has the Midas touch or is simply lucky this is a dangerous stance to take (more a sect or cult with a follower rather than a rational decision).

Perhaps the real issue here is the conservation of money. For these types of schemes to payout the massive returns the money must either come from betting companies or people. It seems with the investigation of the FSA that most of the money in this case came from people. In this case one could see it as a tax on the fiscally ill-educated. I wonder are the investors who made a lot of money through KF concept happy that their winnings, in the main, essentially came from poorer families trying to change there circumstances by taking a risk (essentially what Kevin Foster did)?

Whilst there are many legal systems and companies which tax our poor decisions (like scratch cards and the like) are we to condone this large scale redistribution of wealth?

Charities convince people to part with their hard earned money all the time with no promise of recompense other than some form of altruistic good feeling. However, in this case the carrot, so to speak, is a promise of massive returns. If you choose to believe Kevin Foster you may have made a bad choice (the majority) or a good choice (early investors and the lucky apparently arbitrarily chosen few). However, whether the returns you have received came from innovation, hard work or genuine enterprise is doubtful. Anarchist could claim that registered companies and corporations (like banks) get away with this behaviour all the time and in these cases the victims are usually exploited developing countries and poorer regions. For these smaller cases the victims are closer to home and perhaps more able to voice there opinions.

All of this said it is clear that the total money in the system was less than the "promised" payouts such a system is unstable and doomed to failure eventually. As to whether Kevin Foster was a wealthy man before this company came along I can say that the last time I had any contact with him he had tried and failed numerous similar small scale schemes and been unsuccessful. Perhaps he got better at it, perhaps he is inherently lucky (although being in jail is not a very lucky place to be) or perhaps it was a will full act to take money from "gullible" people (by which I mean no disrespect, I myself am particularly susceptible to prime time TV advertising subliminally) either way the net number of people left unhappy by the scheme seems larger, or at least more vocal, than those left pleased with , what legally and perhaps morally appear to be classed as ill-gotten gains.

I look forward to continued debate and anyone who has contrary (or not) opinions. I have a particular personal interest in learning about this man and this scheme.
regards.

Bibsbobs:

Thank you for your heartfelt reply it is clear that you care alot for
this man. Whilst I found your post a little hard to follow I think I
understand the salient points. Essentially, your saying that Kevin
Foster is in fact a local hero type figure and for the original 24
people that joined the initial betting syndicate, overall, money was
made and not lost. Having not been involved in the syndicate, nor
passed judgement on Kevin I am not guilty of betrayal, I am simply an
interest observer. As to who has the money, I am not an expert on this
but I should imagine the the money will be kept 'frozen' until as much
as possible can be recovered and paid back to the many trustees not so
fortunate as your self who have lost lots of money. Unfortunately,
with a scheme like this there are always winners and losers and for
the few winners it really seems a fantastic way to make money. On the
other hand one does not have to look far to find someone who has lost
out and is deeply, financially hurt. As to the description you have
made of Kevin I repeat what I stated earlier, I don't think he is an
evil man. However, from what I remember he is most certainly not
afraid of making money from other peoples misfortune, and to describe
Kevin as a local hero/saint figure is perhaps stretching the
truth. Although, as I stated I have not known him for quite some time
and people do change. I hope that everyone who lost out on this scheme
gets their money back.

Coming from South Wales we were one of the unfortunates who lost a large amount of money into the KFC scheme. It is almost impossible to glean any information as to the state of the bankruptcy proceedings, back in September 2006 we received an interim report from Begbies Traynor in which they set out their findings and then they proceeded to use a large amount of the asset realized to cover their fees.

There have been strong rumors that there is still a massive amount of money in Swiss bank accounts but that this money could not be quantified or disclosed until Kevin Foster was officially declared bankrupt. Does anyone have an idea if this is true and is their still hope that as creditors we might get something in the pound from the monies that may have survived the deductions by Begbies Traynor and others.

If I contact Begbies Traynor direct I believe that will charge £25 deductible from the assets. I may be wrong on many accounts but calling myself weary loser says it all.

To all of you who fell that the FSA/SFO stopped this wonderful man... GOOD. He only made payouts from later members - this is what a Ponzi scheme is.

As long as he could recruit an ever greater number of victims, he could pay out the earlier 'investors' (and cream off a lot for himself). This is physically and statistically impossible.

I agree with an earleir poster (djp) there seems to be a sudden influx of new members who want to sing his praises.

Forget it. The man is, and was a fraud committing scammer - and now thats official. I feel very sorry for those who lost money, I even feel sorry for those who made money... your consciences must hurt knowing that your investment is the result of theft from other victims. I DON'T feel sorry that the criminal is where he belongs, behind bars and am grateful that nobody else will fall victim.

JayHoe, board admin of KFC Free Chat - http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/index.php?mforum=kfcfreechat

stitched up

hello jayhoe, yes stitched up by the establishment, was wondering when you would grab the bait didnt take long did it lol, sad when so many people lost money .

As you financial boys seem to show an interest in the Kevin Foster Saga. I wonder if you would be interested in helping the 8.500 members by getting an update from the Trustees and perhaps you may be able to explain to me( as I am just a stupid investor) Mr Kevin Foster was found not guilty of the theft of £225.000 this was retrieved where is this money Have any members been paid anything from that retrieved money.