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Anybody heard of or done business with? It's a private Healthcare fund. I can't seem to find anything on them...except from them..ha! Claims good returns but? Any experiences? Thanks
Oodles of red flags. Starting with performance that would make Bernie Madoff blush. Not a single losing month from January 2016 through June 2022. (I can hardly wait to see it post July results.) Smooth as silk. Just look at the graph. https://tbocapital.com/performance
No wonder the "prospectus" doesn't say anything about how the fee is handled in a down month (do they multiply their percentage by a negative return?)
That "prospectus" is missing a lot of information aside from how fees are handled (and what the fee is if you invest more than $1.5M). No bios on the fund managers (they claim experience but w/o history), no SAI or other doc with information about how the fund is structured, no tax information, etc.
Did I mention that the numbers are inconsistent? For example, Jan-June 2021 monthly returns given on the performance page total to a cumulative return of 33.27%. But the prospectus gives the 2021 YTD performance as of June 2021 as 29.48%. And the three year return isn't annualized.
There's no 2021 annual report, only one for 2020, and none earlier.
But all this is minor stuff. The kind of information one would look at if a fund were real. It's the more blatant stuff where the fun is.
ICANN reports that the website registration is private (no surprise there). Though it gives a mailing address in Iceland. Kalkofnsvegur 2, Reykjavik, Capital Region, 101, IS
"The SEC typically regulates investment advisers that have assets under management in excess of $100,000,000." The prospectus states the fund has $164M AUM.
And for the regulation wonks: Performance fees are generally prohibited. They are allowed if an offering is restricted to accredited investors (but this fund is open to anyone), or if the performance fee operates on a fulcrum (this doesn't).
With a fulcrum, performance adjustments are symmetric; fees go down if the fund underperforms just as they go up with outperformance.
I fully agree. That's why I posed the question. I know I checked FINRA and found nothing. All the officers do have bios on LinkedIn with pretty extensive experiences shown. Who knows. The other thing is that on their website they show the top ten stocks invested in. Of those 10 only Eli Lilly has profited YTD. All others are down double digits YTD. Yes agree, red flags all over the place but what stands out is I can't find anything or anyone speaking of them other then them. With those returns I'd be gushing....
Call me paranoid, but when a "fund" manager says how extensive his experience is but won't detail it in writing (i.e. on the fund site, let alone in the prospectus), that suggests to me that he's worried about putting something dodgy into a legal document.
Like making all sorts of claims but then turning silent in court. Purely hypothetical of course.
I did see the linked in profiles. Nothing I could readily verify.
Yep agreed! No transparency whatsoever. It's like this fund is supposively making 50% returns yet they don't exist anywhere except amongst themselves.....maybe they don't...ha! Not looking for someone to cook the books with my money.
The application form lets you send in money and lets you make daily withdrawals. That's an open end fund. But the Terms and Conditions page says that this is a "closed ended [sic] mutual fund".
How many decades of industry experience does it take to differentiate between an open end fund and a closed "ended" fund?
The page goes on to say that "It offers monthly dividends to investors instead of growth option i.e. increase in NAV (share) price."
This begs the question: is it selling shares of its underlying holdings every month and distributing proceeds to keep its NAV from growing?
I think I'll stop now. This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I'll leave with a couple of questions based on this excerpt:
Outperformed 95% of peers over the last six years with less risk. ... Long-tenured advisors of three PhDs and one MD in internal medicine
What are the 5% of health care fund peers who have made more than 50% annualized over the last six years? Or is this "outperforming 95% of peers" just a made up figure to make it seems that the 50% returns reported are not equally fictitious?
M* premium screener returns no funds of any type with 50% returns over the past five years.
Stringing together the best performing health care fund in each of the last six calendar years, e.g. FSMEX (8.68% in 2016), ETIHX (45.83% in 2017) and so on, one achieves only a 36% annualized return. All actual health care funds returned less than my cherry-picked combo.
Who are the PhDs and MD? TBO Capital names only four principals, and none of them hold any sort of doctorate degree according to their Linked In profiles.
I think generally (but not always) there’s some rough correlation between risk and potential reward in any investment. Even a stock or fund that’s been racking up a “mere” 30% in consecutive annual returns sets off caution flags in my mind. That type of reward isn’t achieved with only “modest” risk of capital.
Anybody remember what ENRON was churning out yearly before the roof caved in?
So, looks like TBO Capital is a scam. I invested some money 2 months ago and now the site vanished along with all the LinkedIn info. Unfortunately I only found this platform after.
So, looks like TBO Capital is a scam. I invested some money 2 months ago and now the site vanished along with all the LinkedIn info. Unfortunately I only found this platform after.
Found the TBO web site in March and when the investment returns seemed too good to be true, I figured they probably were. It was tempting but too many red flags showed up. After contacting the SEC and undergoing their interrogation in July, I stopped considering investing. Great to find this discussion and hear the experience of others.
Daniel, you're not alone. We're awaiting a phone call in a little over an hour from an SEC attorney with an update of our situation. If you haven't filed a complaint with them, you should. I've also filed with the NY Attorney General's office but haven't heard back yet. The SEC reached out to me less than 2 weeks after I filed with them...
I guess I`m not the only one tempted by their promise of higher than possible returns. I actually saw that they disappeared a little more than a week ago & figured that others would find out also, since they used to make payments on the 5th of each month. For what it`s worth, I located the actual person behind this fraud: Darius Karpavicius who also hides behind his shill company called HMC trading, LLC. He uses a fake mailing address. Also, all the LinkedIn profiles were fabricated and the image photos were stock photos. I felt it in my gut, but went with it anyway.
Anybody heard of or done business with? It's a private Healthcare fund. I can't seem to find anything on them...except from them..ha! Claims good returns but? Any experiences? Thanks
Hi Guys, I am Lucy and I was also a victim of fraud from TBO Capital Group; I invested with them in May and on 9/30/22 I couldn't access the website, phone nor emails. I reported to my bank right away, did police report, FTC.com, SEC.com and CA State Attorney; Also another government place to report it is IC3.
Bravo Louise for finding out who the fraudster is behind HMC Trading;
Dale, thanks so much for informing us that SEC got back to u in 2 weeks. Please keep us informed on this site. HOPE EVERYONE GETS THEIR MONEY BACK. Next time I see anyone offering more than 10 to 20%, do my homework and check them out on finra.com and sec.gov and brokercheck.com
I invested with TBO in April-2022. Their documentation looked half legit. My greed overrided the many redflags. I also filed a complaint with the SEC and IC3.
The SEC got back to give me 1 day after the complaint. I did a phone interview with an SEC attorney on Oct-6. Maybe there was some priority on the case. He said there were other compliants also.
balyan55, thanks so much for the tip on IC3, filled out a complaint this morning. Bob_Up, I'm HOPING when this builds in the SEC docket, they'll do something aggressively. I was a bit...underwhelmed by the response from the SEC attorney. Super-nice guy, maybe he was just setting expectations low. Which I get. But we're thinking we may need to hire an attorney to look out for us.
Another agency you should all think about filing with is the NY Attorney General's office. They have teeth. They're a more "law enforcement" arm than it seems to us the SEC may be. Maybe if they're all on notice they can coordinate this mess...
Also, do you think we should start a group or something somewhere so that we can all share information? Is this the place to do it? I just don't want this website to get taken down or go away. We all need to share all information that we find so that we can help each other! For example, I told my attorney about Darius Karpavicius and he said
"The bad news he is Lithuanian and may be aligned with Russian mob. Suggest you call FBI back with this info and let them know this could be a violation of anti-money laundering as well as financial embargo placed on Russian assets."
Also wanted to express empathy and sympathy for all of you that have been scammed....I know that my wife and I are feeling really low and sad and depressed. But knowing that we are not alone does help. But I am really sad and sorry for all of you!
Let's all detail out the steps that we have taken and suggest other steps that should be taken.
Maybe if we raise enough stink to the SEC or the State of NY or the NYPD or the FTC or the FBI maybe something will happen.
Here are the steps and results I have taken so far:
Contacted several attorneys and recovery agencies....I am still vetting them, but I have gotten good information from one attorney. He is a former USMC and spent 14 years with NYPD in Brooklyn. 10 years with a unit: Street Crime Suppression. He suggested I call NYPD since it looks like these criminals operated in NYC. He said
"call NYPD Midtown North Precinct 212 767 8400. Tell them what has happened, the FBI has been notified and ask if they can check and see if there is anyone from that company still at that address. It is an apartment building per picture on Google."
I called NYPD but they were not very helpful. The detective I spoke with just kept saying to call my local police (I am local to Dallas TX).
But I finally pressured him for a name and he gave me the name of Detective Criollo. Corillo is in charge of cyber crime and fraud for that division. So I will call him on Monday.
I have filled out the form at IC3 and also with the FTC. No response from either yet. I need to contact the SEC on Monday.
I have contacted the 2 banks that I used to wire and send the checks out (so pissed) and they have started their steps. They are trying to recall the wires (obviously the money is gone but that is their process) and they are also filing complaints with the receiving banks for the wires and the checks. I also asked my banks for all original documentation for the wires and checks. Just so I have all the paperwork.
It looks like my wires went to 2 different banks. Fifth Third Bank and Wells Fargo Bank. I will try to contact both of them and raise a stink.
If I think of more I will post. Sorry again to all who have been victimized. We could all come together and hire a lawyer or a Private Investigator? Just thinking outloud......
Hey Guys, I found this intelligence agency when I searched google for investment fraud/scam; they came up and called me saying I had inquired about their services; they are CNC Intelligence based in Orem, Utah; Their website is CNCIntel.com their # is 202-519-9380; What they told me is they have intelligence and contacts everywhere and they can find the scammer and inform us scammer's name, address, contact. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE VET THEM OUT BEFOREHAND; I DON'T KNOW HOW TO VET;
Also I want to say WE SHOULD CREATE EMAIL GROUP BUT HOW TO SHARE EMAIL ADDRESSES HERE? CAN WE ASK OWNER OF THIS SITE TO SEND EMAILS OF EVERYONE FOR TBO CAPITAL DISCUSSION?
Hey Guys, ask the owner of this site, David Snowball or whoever maintains the site to help create email group for TBO Capital victims on this site so far. This way we don't have to place our private email addresses on this site or group for public to see. If we have to create our own email group, then I guess we have to share our emails here but create a different email address than your main one, like a special email address on yahoo or gmail just to be used for TBO Capital/HMC trading scam victims;
Comments
https://tbocapital.com/performance
No wonder the "prospectus" doesn't say anything about how the fee is handled in a down month (do they multiply their percentage by a negative return?)
That "prospectus" is missing a lot of information aside from how fees are handled (and what the fee is if you invest more than $1.5M). No bios on the fund managers (they claim experience but w/o history), no SAI or other doc with information about how the fund is structured, no tax information, etc.
Did I mention that the numbers are inconsistent? For example, Jan-June 2021 monthly returns given on the performance page total to a cumulative return of 33.27%. But the prospectus gives the 2021 YTD performance as of June 2021 as 29.48%. And the three year return isn't annualized.
There's no 2021 annual report, only one for 2020, and none earlier.
But all this is minor stuff. The kind of information one would look at if a fund were real. It's the more blatant stuff where the fun is.
The domain name/website used to be operated by completely different people selling land development services.
https://web.archive.org/web/20121030031036/http://tbocapital.com:80/services.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20121028192927/http://tbocapital.com:80/about.html
The site went black in 2015 (when the "new" TBO Capital says it started), and the WayBack Machine Archive doesn't show any real text pages until May of this year, e.g.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220518131741/https://tbocapital.com/performance
(The complete list of pages crawled, real or not is:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tbocapital.com/*)
ICANN reports that the website registration is private (no surprise there). Though it gives a mailing address in Iceland.
Kalkofnsvegur 2, Reykjavik, Capital Region, 101, IS
Neither the "managers" of the fund nor TBO Capital show up on either the SEC's or FINRA's site for brokers, firms, etc.
https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/
https://brokercheck.finra.org/
"The SEC typically regulates investment advisers that have assets under management in excess of $100,000,000." The prospectus states the fund has $164M AUM.
And for the regulation wonks: Performance fees are generally prohibited. They are allowed if an offering is restricted to accredited investors (but this fund is open to anyone), or if the performance fee operates on a fulcrum (this doesn't).
With a fulcrum, performance adjustments are symmetric; fees go down if the fund underperforms just as they go up with outperformance.
https://etfdb.com/etf-education/learn-about-fulcrum-fees/ (See Regulatory Considerations)
Like making all sorts of claims but then turning silent in court. Purely hypothetical of course.
I did see the linked in profiles. Nothing I could readily verify.
Not looking for someone to cook the books with my money.
It seems that the 10% performance fee used to be 11%:
https://prdistribution.com/news/tbo-capital-announces-reduction-of-performance-fees-for-all-balances-2.html
The application form lets you send in money and lets you make daily withdrawals. That's an open end fund. But the Terms and Conditions page says that this is a "closed ended [sic] mutual fund".
How many decades of industry experience does it take to differentiate between an open end fund and a closed "ended" fund?
The page goes on to say that "It offers monthly dividends to investors instead of growth option i.e. increase in NAV (share) price."
This begs the question: is it selling shares of its underlying holdings every month and distributing proceeds to keep its NAV from growing?
I think I'll stop now. This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I'll leave with a couple of questions based on this excerpt: What are the 5% of health care fund peers who have made more than 50% annualized over the last six years? Or is this "outperforming 95% of peers" just a made up figure to make it seems that the 50% returns reported are not equally fictitious?
M* premium screener returns no funds of any type with 50% returns over the past five years.
Stringing together the best performing health care fund in each of the last six calendar years, e.g. FSMEX (8.68% in 2016), ETIHX (45.83% in 2017) and so on, one achieves only a 36% annualized return. All actual health care funds returned less than my cherry-picked combo.
Who are the PhDs and MD? TBO Capital names only four principals, and none of them hold any sort of doctorate degree according to their Linked In profiles.
I think generally (but not always) there’s some rough correlation between risk and potential reward in any investment. Even a stock or fund that’s been racking up a “mere” 30% in consecutive annual returns sets off caution flags in my mind. That type of reward isn’t achieved with only “modest” risk of capital.
Anybody remember what ENRON was churning out yearly before the roof caved in?
Or, for that matter … ARKK
Bravo Louise for finding out who the fraudster is behind HMC Trading;
Dale, thanks so much for informing us that SEC got back to u in 2 weeks. Please keep us informed on this site. HOPE EVERYONE GETS THEIR MONEY BACK. Next time I see anyone offering more than 10 to 20%, do my homework and check them out on finra.com and sec.gov and brokercheck.com
The SEC got back to give me 1 day after the complaint. I did a phone interview with an SEC attorney on Oct-6. Maybe there was some priority on the case. He said there were other compliants also.
Another agency you should all think about filing with is the NY Attorney General's office. They have teeth. They're a more "law enforcement" arm than it seems to us the SEC may be. Maybe if they're all on notice they can coordinate this mess...
"The bad news he is Lithuanian and may be aligned with Russian mob. Suggest you call FBI back with this info and let them know this could be a violation of anti-money laundering as well as financial embargo placed on Russian assets."
Also wanted to express empathy and sympathy for all of you that have been scammed....I know that my wife and I are feeling really low and sad and depressed. But knowing that we are not alone does help. But I am really sad and sorry for all of you!
Maybe if we raise enough stink to the SEC or the State of NY or the NYPD or the FTC or the FBI maybe something will happen.
Here are the steps and results I have taken so far:
Contacted several attorneys and recovery agencies....I am still vetting them, but I have gotten good information from one attorney. He is a former USMC and spent 14 years with NYPD in Brooklyn. 10 years with a unit: Street Crime Suppression. He suggested I call NYPD since it looks like these criminals operated in NYC. He said
"call NYPD Midtown North Precinct 212 767 8400. Tell them what has happened, the FBI has been notified and ask if they can check and see if there is anyone from that company still at that address. It is an apartment building per picture on Google."
I called NYPD but they were not very helpful. The detective I spoke with just kept saying to call my local police (I am local to Dallas TX).
But I finally pressured him for a name and he gave me the name of Detective Criollo. Corillo is in charge of cyber crime and fraud for that division. So I will call him on Monday.
I have filled out the form at IC3 and also with the FTC. No response from either yet. I need to contact the SEC on Monday.
I have contacted the 2 banks that I used to wire and send the checks out (so pissed) and they have started their steps. They are trying to recall the wires (obviously the money is gone but that is their process) and they are also filing complaints with the receiving banks for the wires and the checks. I also asked my banks for all original documentation for the wires and checks. Just so I have all the paperwork.
It looks like my wires went to 2 different banks. Fifth Third Bank and Wells Fargo Bank. I will try to contact both of them and raise a stink.
If I think of more I will post. Sorry again to all who have been victimized. We could all come together and hire a lawyer or a Private Investigator? Just thinking outloud......
they are CNC Intelligence based in Orem, Utah; Their website is CNCIntel.com
their # is 202-519-9380; What they told me is they have intelligence and contacts everywhere and they can find the scammer and inform us scammer's name, address, contact. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE VET THEM OUT BEFOREHAND; I DON'T KNOW HOW TO VET;
Beware some recovery websites are also online scams.
Good luck, Derf