Peter Bevis Of Highland Titles Linkedin Profile Jiggery-Pokery

In the last post we saw how Stewart Borland of Highland Titles changed his Linkedin profile to portray a different take on his position shortly after the post went up. Peter Bevis of Highland Titles has also recently changed his Linkedin profile  to tell a different story to the previous one.

In March this year Mr Bevis claimed his current position was "Trustee at The Highland Titles Charitable Trust for Scotland".

And the summary read, "Retired from normal business, I am now devoting my time to running a small charity the Highland Titles Charitable Trust for Scotland ...."

Now (April) the claim is "Managing Director at Highland Titles Limited"

And the summary reads "Retired from normal business life, I am now devoting my time to running a small business Highland Titles ..... "

It seems Mr Bevis might no longer involved with the Highland Titles Charitable Trust for Scotland, or perhaps he'd rather not be associated with it any more?

The logical conclusion would seem to be, that nothing on either profile should be taken at face value. They seem to change at a whim to reflect  more what they want the reader to believe than anything approaching reality. Should people who can't even tell a consistent story on their own public profiles by trusted to be involved in the running of a charity?

Linkedin Profile Extract For Peter Bevis on March 22nd 2014

 

Linkedin Profile Extract For Peter Bevis on April 19th 2014

 

Stewart Borland Of Highland Titles Nature Reserve Review

Update

My thanks to the sender of a note to point out that Mr Borland posted his Tripadvisor review before he actually worked for Highland Titles. The review was posted on 2nd August, I understand Mr Borland took up his position with Highland Titles later that same month. This report should therefore not be taken as a deliberate deception, but more perhaps forgetfulness in not contacting Tripadvisor to let them know of the position. As always I'm happy for it to be pointed out if it looks like I have made an error, and am quite happy to correct any issues. My sincere apologies to Mt Borland if I have suggested any deliberate deception on his part if this was not so.

Remember in this post we found that William Melnyk, a Highland Titles distributor in the USA, had a review published of the Highland Titles nature reserve on Tripadvisor against Tripadvisor rules? .... I can report that Highland Titles employee Stewart Borland also had a review of the nature reserve posted.

Stewart Borland from Ballachullish, of the HIghland Titles sales and marketing department, better known as their "meet & greet" man for their nature reserve, has also had his Tripadvisir review removed for violating Tripadvisor rules by having a review of the property of his employers.

The reviewers user name was CraigavonCottage, and guess what? ... yes ... Highland Titles employee Stewart, runs Craigavon Cottage as a self-catering holiday home.

Stewart Borland's "Craigavon Cottage" Highland Titles Nature Reserve Review

 

 

Further Update

Well well ... Stewart seems to have changed his Linkedin profile shortly after this post was published, apparently he's now a volunteer. Errrr Stewart, were you being a bit short on the truth before, or are you being a bit short of the truth now?

Stewart's Profile Before This Article

 Stewart's Profile After This Article

Highland Titles Charitable Trust For Scotland Misleading Says Scottish Charity Regulator

Fresh from the revelations by the Advertising Standards Authority that advertising about Scottish titles by Highland Titles is misleading, now the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator has found the Highland Titles Charitable Trust For Scotland to be misleading. Not only that, but the judgement also claims that Highland Titles Ltd was thought to be falsely presenting themselves as a charity in December 2012.

“On 3rd April 2014, OSCR issued a direction under Section 31(5) of the 2005 Act requiring Mr Peter Bevis to stop representing the ‘The Highland Titles Charitable Trust for Scotland’ as a charity registered in Scotland."

The story starts here:

http://www.oscr.org.uk/news-and-events/latest-news/highland-titles-charitable-trust-for-scotland/

The full judgement can be seen in pdf format here:

http://www.oscr.org.uk/media/472678/2014-04-03_s33_report_the_highland_titles_charitable_trust_for_scotland.pdf

"As a result of inquiries made under section 28 of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (the 2005 Act) it appears to OSCR that a body known as The Highland Titles Charitable Trust for Scotland has been misrepresenting itself as a charity in Scotland."

We can see from the judgement that Highland Titles were thought in the past by OSCR, to be misrepresenting Highland Titles Ltd (a full for profit limited company) as a charity.

"OSCR initially received a complaint in December 2012 alleging that a body known as Highland Titles was misrepresenting itself as a Scottish charity. On receipt OSCR took action to warn Mr Peter Bevis that this was misrepresentation and should be amended."

 Some quotations from the judgement:

"In Addition, although the organisation is registered in another jurisdiction OSCR takes the view that where a body carries out activities in any office, shop or similar premises in Scotland, the 2005 Act provides that it may not represent itself as a charity even where it is registered as such under the law of another country.

It is not therefore entitled to refer to itself as a "charity" or "Scottish charity" or to use in its name words which imply such a status."

The Highland Titles Charitable Trust for Scotland is registered in Guernsey, and as such is completely and utterly unaccountable, not required to reveal anything about its activities other than the name and address. They should not be representing themselves in any way as a Scottish charity.

"A person, who without reasonable excuse refuses or fails to comply with a direction under section 31(5) of the 2005 Act is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (currently £5000) or imprisonment for a period not exceeding 6 months or to both."

Feel free to report anywhere you seen this charity representing itself as a Scottish charity, to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. info@oscr.org.uk 

Response From Scottish Lawyer On The ASA Ruling Against Highland Titles

There was an interesting response publish in The Scotsman newspaper after the story about the ruling against Highland Titles was published. This is letter to the Scotsman newspaper sent by Craig Anderson, Lecturer In Law at Robert Gordon University Aberdeen.

In it Mr Anderson makes it very clear that in his opinion, buyers of souvenir plots in Scotland do not own the land they might have been led to believe they have bought.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/letters/law-of-the-land-1-3336742

Who would you rather believe, a lecturer in law in Scotland, or a company like Highland Titles who have been found by the Advertising Standards Authority to be publishing misleading information in their advertising materials?

The letter is reproduced in full below.

"I note from your article, “ASA raps company over ‘fake Scots laird’ titles”, (11 March) that the Advertising Standards Authority has taken action against a company claiming to sell minuscule pieces of land, entitling the purchaser to adopt the title Laird, Lord or Lady of Glencoe.

Such action is to be welcomed. However, I am afraid that, in ­reporting the exposure of one part of this company’s misrepresentation, you have given ­credence to another. Your article stated that the sale of these plots has “created 7,500 new Scots landowners”. It has done nothing of the sort. A person who buys land in Scotland can only become the owner by registration in the Land Register of Scotland.

The Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979 does not allow registration of “souvenir plots”, meaning “land which, being of inconsiderable size, or no practical utility, is unlikely to be wanted in isolation except for the sake of mere ownership or for sentimental reasons or commemorative purposes”.

As the square-foot plots sold by this company clearly fall within this definition, they cannot be registered and, as a result, their purchasers can never become owners of the land they believe that they have bought.

In other words, so far is this company’s scheme from creating 7,500 new landowners, that it has in fact created none whatsoever.

Craig Anderson

Lecturer in law

Robert Gordon University

Aberdeen"

ASA Rules Highland Titles Misleading And Laird Titles Are Fake

There has now been an Advertising Standards Authority Ruling made against Highland Titles, which finds they have been misleading customers to believe that they receive a Scottish landowners Laird Lord or Lady title, when this is not actually true.

It's official, there are no Scottish landowner titles, and you cannot buy a Scottish Lord or Lady title from Highland Titles or anybody else. Laird isn't a Scottish title, that is just something made up by the con artists trying to sell you one.

Some quotations from the ASA ruling.

“However, we considered the overall impression of the website and noted a large number of statements that implied a direct link between the purchase of the land sold by Highland Titles and the attainment of the titles Lord, Lady or Laird."

“We considered that consumers were likely to understand those statements to mean that through the purchase of a souvenir plot of land from Highland Titles they would gain the right to use a title to which they would not otherwise have had the right."

“We considered that those statements contradicted the message that anyone was able to use those titles and gave the impression that the titles available to customers who bought land from Highland Titles were recognised in a way that titles adopted by ordinary members of the public were not."

“Because we considered that the ad included a number of contradictory statements in relation to the nature of the titles available to Highland Titles’ customers, we concluded that the website was ambiguous and likely to mislead.”

 The story was reported in several Scottish newspapers.

 Screen capture from the Herald Scotland website of the Highland Titles Fake Laird Titles ASA story

Two screen captures from The Scotsman newspaper website on the Highland Titles fake laird titles story

Scan of the Metro newspaper of the Highland Titles fake laird titles story.

As pointed out in a comment the story was also the Daily Record, under the headline "You Have Been 'Ad M'lady". http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-361213255.html

Highland Titles have been found to be misleading people into believing that through ownership of land they gained the right to take up a Laird Lord or Lady title. The Advertising Standards Authority have pointed out this is entirely untrue. If Highland Titles are willing to knowingly mislead their customers like this, what else might they be leading them to believe which is not true? Perhaps the extent of and the amount of money spent on conservation work?

Footnote

As also pointed out in a comment, the Highlend Titles story appeared on The Scotsman newspaper website for a while on the 11th March (screen captures above), then vanished. I don't know if this is the reason it was withdrawn, but it does appear that The Scotsman has some kind of 'partner' relationship with Highland Titles as a Google search reveals.

One would hope that any such arrangement would not compromise editorial decisions, but I'd bet The Scotsman wouldn't be very popular in Glencoe if that was found to be the reason the article was withdrawn from The Scotsman website.

Highland Titles Getting Your Money Back From And Complaining About

Perhaps after purchasing a "package" from Highland Titles or another similar business and have now found out against expectations that you did not get any sort of meaninful title, that the land "ownership" is actually some kind of private contract which does not in fact bestow real ownership, or that any conservation work is possibly dubious at best, largely unnacountable and non transparent, and you now feel you want a refund, what can you do?

If you paid for a plot of land from Highland Titles and are now in any way dissatisfied, the good news is that it should be simplicity itself to have your money refunded as highland Titles offer a 30 day 100% no quibble guarantee.

From http://www.highlandtitles.com/buy-your-plot/refund-policy/ on 02/01/2014.

"100% “No Quibble” Money Back Guarantee......
...... If you are not totally satisfied with your order or have simply changed your mind, please return the product to us within 30 days of your order date and we will refund you for the product. Please include a brief letter including your name and address and an explanation as to why you are returning the item(s)."

From http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.highlandtitles.com on 02/01/2014

"We are so confident that you will be 100% satisfied with our product, that if you are not, we guarantee to refund your purchase price if you return your Laird Pack within 30 days. No questions asked."

This means that should you request a refund for any reason, even that of simply changing your mind, you should receive that refund immediately, without any argument whatsoever ..... that is no argument at all, none.

If Highland Titles offer any resistance at all to immediately refunding your money without argument, report them to the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds that their refund policy is not actually "100% no quibble". Include any supporting correspondence, emails etc. to demonstrate that they have attempted to dissuade you from obtaining your promised refund.

The ASA complaints procedure can be found here.

You may also want to complaint to Trading Standards, in the United Kingdom this is normally done via the Citizens Advice Bureau. There is an online form for reporting issues which can be found here.

For the Channel Islands including Alderney where Highland Titles are based, Guernsey Trading Standards can be contacted as below.

Guernsey Trading Standards
Trading Standards Service
Raymond Falla House
PO Box 459
Longue Rue
St Martins
GY1 6AF
Guernsey
Telephone: 01481 234567
Email: ts@commerce.gov.gg

If you feel you have been misled in any way by the various promotions and advertising produced by Highland Titles, or any other vendor of "Scottish Titles", please complain to the relevant above agencies with details of how you think you have been misled. Include any relevant information, keep any printed documentation or emails, and take screen captures of any online promotions and advertising you feel is misleading as evidence.

The Highland Titles Nature Reserve On Tripadvisor

Currently there are twelve reviews of the Highland Titles Nature Reserve On Tripadvisor, all give it the full five stars. I believe most of these reviews are unsound, as they were mainly written by Highland Titles customers who have bought plots.

Until recently there were fourteen reviews, but two have been removed after complaints. One of those was by William Melnyk, a Highland Titles vendor from the USA (slight lack of integrity there I think!). The other one which was removed was by someone who had not even attempted to visit but had still given it five stars. As an aside, Mr Melnyk used to be an Episcopal priest, but was asked to resign at the request of his parish vestry, after it was discovered he was also a practising Druid!


The danger that reviews written by plot holders are liable to be unreliable and biased is beautifully demonstrated in the review by "Iwannahorn". The reviewer did not even find the nature reserve, took pictures of an ordinary field beside it and gave it the full five stars! This reviewer it seems, believes that an ordinary sheep field which could be anywhere, is deserving of a full five star nature reserve! The unfortunate lady also includes a picture of her plot which she also clearly failed to find.

 

It is quite clear to me, that reviews written by plot holders really cannot be relied upon to be objective or unbiased. The "thrill" of plot ownership would appear to result in a rather "rose tinted" opinion.

There is another review by owners of self catering accommodation in nearby Ballachulish, Craigavon Cottage, as they are likely to profit from people using their accommodation when they visit, I'm suspicious that this review might also not be entirely relied upon to be completely reliable.

The fact that after over a year on Tripadvisor that there are only twelve reviews surely indicates that there are in reality few visitors. Where are all the reviews by all those local people Highland Titles claim visit? Could it be that local people don't visit it much and those that do are much less than overwhelmed by the experience?

The Highland Titles Charitable Trust For Scotland Article

Earlier this year, the same people behind Highland Titles, were involved in starting an organisation called The Highland Titles Charitable Trust For Scotland, a Guernsey (not a UK) registered charity. It is interesting to see what Peter Bevis of Highland Titles wrote back in August of 2012 on the subject of Highland Titles and charities. This was published by Highland Titles in response to material published on the scots-titles.com website.

"Let me explain some facts of business. Enterprises such as Highland Titles register as charities for one reason only. To avoid paying tax, so that they can spend more of their money of the projects they advocate.  There are many taxes that can be avoided, tax on retained profits and sales taxes being the most significant.  In return they suffer the overheads of accountancy, which is a reasonable trade off most of the time.  Highland Titles operates in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. There is no tax on retained profits in Guernsey(zero). There are no sales taxes  in Guernsey (zero). If we registered as a charity, which we could easily do, we would have less money to spend on conservation, not more, as our accountancy costs would be considerably higher. Highland Titles is a family run business. We take no dividends or profits from it. We never have and never will. We refuse to waste money on unnecessary accountancy because pleasing you does not form part of our remit."

It would appear that the people behind Highland Titles have gone against their own good advice, and now one would presume, there is considerable amounts of unnecessary money being spent on accountancy rather than conservation. As Highland Titles had little or no tax burden already, what on earth would be the point of the charity if there are no saving on tax to be made?

I certainly do not agree that the only reason to register as a charity is to avoid paying tax, there is another very good reason involving transparency. In Scotland and England, registered charities are required to produce accounts which are made available to the public, and names of directors are published. In this way anybody can satisfy themselves to some degree that the business of the charity is being conducted in a proper manner which adequately benefits the cause. It also means that any claims made for income and expenditure etc. can be checked against accounts submitted to the authorities.

Guernsey registered charities on the other hand, have no such burden of financial transparency. The only requirement in regard to transparency required of Guernsey registered charities, is to publish their name, address, and charity number, nothing else.

In Guernsey, “The law neither specifically provides nor requires the Registrar or the organisation to make accounts available to the public….. the information that is published is limited to the name, business address and reference number of the charity.”

It is not possible to find out the names of the directors or trustees, it is not possible to examine their accounts, it is not possible to check any published accounts against those submitted to the authorities. There is no transparency at all.

I can find no firm statement either from Highland Titles or The Highland Titles Charitable Trust For Scotland that any revenue generated by Highland Titles sales is passed to the Charitable Trust. If you can find such a statement please let me know where it is, I'll be happy to report it.

This charity appears to offer no tax advantage, no transparency, no accountability, but will surely incur accounting costs, and perhaps even more salaries to be paid and marketing costs. If someone can explain how this is an improvement and will result in more of the available funds being spent on conservation, please do.

If you are of the opinion that The Highland Titles Charitable Trust For Scotland was set up for any reason other than as part of the Highland Titles marketing machine, in order to financially benefit the for profit Highland Titles company, you might want to consider revising that opinion. What other function could it possibly exist for?

You might also like to read about the promised Highland Titles Scottish charity which was mysteriously aborted after the inaugural AGM had been announced.

Buy A Lord Title Laird Title or Lady Title For Christmas

Christmas is coming, and I'm sure some people out there might be tempted to buy a bit of land and a Laird Lord or Lady title as a present. Well I'm afraid there is bad news, to put it quite simply, you can't ... sorry.

Despite what some of the vendors of some of these fake titles say, it is not possible to buy any of these titles. But it says so on their website you might say, and I agree it does, but if it does, it is a con, a lie.

There are no additional rights to any titles granted with the purchase of any kind of land in Scotland. After purchase you still have exactly the same right you had before to put any word, phrase, combination of characters you feel like in front of your name, and say it is your title. Ownership of land has no bearing on the matter at all. The whole thing has been made up by the people that try to sell them!

When you pay your money for one of these fake titles, you have bought precisely nothing, naught, zilch, nada, not a thing. Anybody that claims you become a Lord or a Lady by buying any land in Scotland is conning the public, pure and simple, you get nothing for your money ... except possibly a worthless personal right to a worthless miniature plot of ground.

See this link -  Do You Get A Laird Lord Or Lady Title By Buying Land In Scotland?

As a whole, apart from the non existent titles, the land sales are themselves usually very suspect. Please get this straight. It is not possible to own a souvenir plot of land in Scotland, note the words "not possible". You see under Scots Law, the owner of the land is whoever has their name in the Land Register of Scotland, or the Register of Sasines, nobody else. Whatever fancy document they sent you, however it is worded, the best you can hope for is a personal right to the land which will only be enforceable against whoever you bought it from. If for instance they go into liquidation, you can kiss goodbye to your land, it will now belong to the liquidator, and there is nothing you can do to get back what you did not really own in the first place!

See this link -  Souvenir Land Plot Ownership in Scotland

To put it simply

If any company claims or implies you get any title as a result of merely buying land in Scotland, they are lying.

If any company claims that you can be the real owner of a souvenir plot of land in Scotland, they are lying.

Let's give these lying con merchants the Christmas they so richly deserve

&

Don't buy a title for Christmas

Highland Titles Fake "Laird Scheme" Review Website

As if using fake newspaper articles to promote their fake titles fake land sales scheme wasn't bad enough, it seems Highland Titles may have sunk, if that is possible, even lower. Recently revealed over at the scots-titles.com forum, it is alleged that Highland Titles are behind a website which claimed to be giving impartial reviews of various "laird schemes". The website was lairdreviews.com which was pulled down shortly after it was claimed on the scots-titles.com forum that Highland Titles were in fact behind it, though the site is now up again.

Update

The fake review website at lairdreviews.com has just undergone an overhaul. The trolls page which was used to abuse critics of these schemes has now gone entirely, as have all the fake contact details, there are currently no contact details at all ..... Update - The Trolls page is now back.

Read the forum posts by Andrew and PetePiper

Rather annoyingly for Highland Titles, an email address seemingly belonging to Helen McGregor of Highland Titles (helenmcgregor55.gmail.com) appeared on a little known record called the SOA Record for lairdreviews.com

The name server for the domain was also changed immediately after the forum posts. As noted above, before the change, the name server for lairdreviews.com was NS1.17135745287.COM.

This name server was used at that time for four domains:

LAIRDREVIEWS.COM reviews (en) laird (en)
ALDERNEYBELLS.COM Alderney (en) bells (en)
GLENCOEWOOD.COM Glencoe (en) wood (en)
CIBELLS.COM bells (en) ci (fr)

The name server change can be seen here

All the above domains except lairdreviews.com are registered to the Bevis family who run Highland Titles.

http://whois.polodomains.com/nameserver/NS1.17135745287.COM/1.html

 The email address helenmcgregor55@gmail.com can be associated with the following domains:

lairdreviews.com
ehic-support.org
fakescotstitles.com
sar.co.uk
glencoewood..com
aldeneybells.com
cibells.com

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=cr&ei=44JlUr3MHfHY4QS94YGACA#filter=0&q=helenmcgregor55.gmail.com&start=0

The site itself gave glowing reviews of Highland Titles, while being a little, and in some cases, a lot less kind to competing company's offerings.

(As an act of common decency I have obscured any real names from the review quotations below.)

Quotations from the Monarch Of The Ben - Laird Of Ben Nevis review ....

"suggests that the owners are trying to evade paying tax and we would certainly not want to do business with such a Company"

"A****  M**** is well known to Trading Standards and a journalist colleague that we consulted "

On Highland Heritage - Laird Of Glenmore / Laird Of Kingsdale ..... 

"Domains by Proxy are owned by B**** P****, and his services are used by shady grops who wish to protect their privacy from the taxman, customers, Trading Standards, etc."

"They also trade on eBay, where they share that forum with some rather dubious vendors and some very unlikely titles."

 On Native Wood Preservation -  Laird Of Blackwood ....

"The first disappointment comes with a page describing the land on offer – Loch Wood by the village of Blackwood. Blackwood sits adjacent to the M74 motorway – Scotland’s main arterial route South to England. It is no more in the Highlands than London and being a Laird is all about the Highlands"

On Mac Sothis - Laird Of John O' Groats ....

"The order process is incredibly basic with room for error and only payment by Paypal is accepted.  We are always wary of shops that only take PayPal; lots of internet scams make use of PayPal"

Of course the Highland Titles offering is described in glowing terms ....

"Our email was replied to within 20 minutes and a follow-up telephone call was answered second ring by a helpful human.  If only all the businesses were like Highland Titles"
(Eh..... it took 20 minutes to answer an email they sent to themselves!!)

Then there was the "Trolls" page, which was nothing more than a personal attack on John Duncan and William (Robin) Cunninghame Graham, completely misrepresenting their positions and making claims they use multiple identities and produce multiple blogs without a shred of evidence in support. Currently the page is still available via the Google cache here.

Should the site vanish again it may be available via the Google cache, follow this link, click the little arrow to the right of the domain name, and click on "Cached".

I find it completely hilarious, there is much evidence to support the theory that Highland Titles use multiple identities all over the internet, and have allegedly produced several blogs to support their scams and attack people they don't like ..... but always somehow "forget" to put their name on them. Yet that same accusation about others is made on a fake review website without a single example of any specific instances to support the allegations made!

Fake newspaper articles ... fake review websites ... accusation that others are trolls when Highland Titles are seemingly using a fake review site to promote their own products and make the competition look very unappetising .... can it get any worse?