Ingenious Reviews 12

Ingenious’s portfolio of products are not for the unadventurous; by investing in startups you know that some of the investments will fail but you expect that at least some of the rest will gain in value over the longer term. After 6 years in Ingenious’s Infrastructure portfolio my initial investment is down at 20% of what I put in. Of the 7 initial investments, 3 have failed, 3 are on life support and one is almost certainly under water by now. Maybe I’ve been particularly unlucky but, on the basis of my experience, I suspect that Ingenious’s understanding of the infrastructure sector was not that good.
Even taking account of the various tax benefits one gets through VCT and other reliefs, I’m unlikely to get back even 60% of what I invested, ie, I would have been better paying the tax and putting the remainder into a more general fund and it would have been a lot less hassle.
The company has a “myIngenious” self-service website but it’s slow, clunky and not much use if you want to follow how your investments are doing; an important aspect when investing in unlisted companies.
What would have been useful is, say, better help in claiming deferred CGT relief. If you’ve got a sizeable investment in this type of fund then it might be worth hiring an accountant to do this for you but for me, paying someone to do the work every year would have sent me even further under water. Just filling the relevant bits of one’s annual tax return is pretty challenging if you’re doing it for the first time. Ingenious were also very slow investing all the money and that delay added to the bureaucracy too, necessitating several complex letters to HMRC. Would I do this kind of investment again? Almost certainly not and definitely not through Ingenious.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY OR THEIR SISTER COMPANY TAXTREE!!!
If I could give no stars then I would, but no option to. Was contacted by ingenious to use their sister company Taxtree to recover PPI interest that I might be owed. Had a letter from HMRC last June to say they had paid a cheque to Taxtree but as of 7 months later I’ve still not received a penny. I put a review on here last year, which was for some reason taken off when Tax tree emailed me to contact them by phone, but when I did, for each option you pressed you just got immediately cut off. They have also not answered my emails. I also contacted HMRC who advised that I should put in a complaint to them so they can investigate, which I shall be doing

Just had a cold call from this company who were ‘checking’ my details and saying I was owned money. They were fishing for my employment status and when I wouldn’t tell them the otherwise plausible sound guy with the ‘trustworthy’ Scottish accent, very unprofessionally hung up on me. Have reported as a scam. Do not engage with them!!

SCAM PHONE CALLS FROM THIS ‘COMPANY’ Do not engage with them. We had a cold call from them from an unknown mobile number, saying they were ‘associated with the Government’. Checked and it is a scam. We reported it.

Had a claim according to ingenious of which I claimed back myself, they told me I had a few claims turns out it was 1 & the one I’d already claimed of £68 & they hounded me for payment which was about half of what I got. Now they’re telling me I’m due tax back off it. It’s £68 for god sake, it’s a big con if I said yes tax back would be around £10 & they would then hound me again for more than I got back. AVOID AVOID AVOID

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY OR TAX TREE! I filled out a form with ingenious to claim back PPI from a loan I had years ago, i then get a letter from hmrc to say tax tree had been sent a cheque for me, I contacted hmrc to ask why and they said tax tree had put in a claim on my behalf i then found out they take 37% plus admin fees!! A complete rip off considering you can claim yourself with a single phone call! Oh and the cheque for the remainder of the money I’m owed still hasn’t been sent out 4 months later!

Biggest scam company on the market. Tried to get PPI money of me about £600 and I couldn't even claim PPI due to bankruptcy. They even tried to refer it too a debt collection agency......do not give into their scams.....they should be put in jail and key thrown away. They now emailing me again to claim other money I'm owed and if you sign it by reading email you will get bombarded with threatening emails. AVOID THIS COMPANY!!!!!!

DO NOT TOUCH THIS COMPANY NO MATTER WHAT YOUR ADVISERS TELL YOU
I had a film scheme which has still only paid out 5 % of what is owed , I had to threaten them with the police to get a rsponse , very unprofessional, no communication , low quality staff .This is scam company for sure and wouldn't be surprised if i get can mail telling me they have gone under and I loose everything .At your peril , you have been warned .I also partly blame my advisors for not doing their homework and checking these people out properly

Avoid. A 3 year EIS still hasn’t paid out after 5 years.

Despite covid (their excuse) figures were poor. The EIS was already 4 years old before covid started.

Unprofessional. Avoid. Find a company with a better record.

I have invested with this company back in 2014, in Renewable energy EIS.
The company was supposed to have highly knowledgable managers in different areas of renewables. I have almost lost all my money among 7 companies I invested in.
On top of this, It is impossible to speak to anybody and they barely answer emails for many months now.
Finally, their Loss Relief statements are almost impossible to understand. Even though they send written reports, I am still unsure what investments have been sold, and for which companies I can report the loss relief, on my tax return. They mention that they don't issue loss relief certificates which surprises me.
I would advise to stay away from this company who has shown not much professionalism nor accountability.

Really poor company which uses investor funds essentially to put together tax schemes and skims as much as it can itself. Has used Covid basically as an excuse to stop communication with customers. No transparency no responses. Use someone more reputable if you have savings.

a poor excuse for an investment company - loses money on most investments and uses the taxable savings as 'profits' - they aren't.
They also sell underlying companies to to other investment companies owned by their shareholders, but at losses for the existing shareholders holding equity in the original investment.
Very high fees to run multiple loss making investments!