Threats of Action

Some of the Dodgier Titles That We Have Come Across

In the course of creating Fake Titles, we have come across some absolutely ludicrous claims from purchasers of ‘titles’, as well as from the sellers; unfortunately some behave in ways that bring little credit to themselves and therefore we felt that it might help you if we highlighted some of those.

‘Lord and Lady’ Bjorn and Maria Teksnes (Shropshire)

This couple own Old Colehurst Manor in Shropshire, a wonderful medieval manor house near Market Drayton that they have lovingly restored, and now hold weddings, residential stays and dinners there. Alas, they also decided to ‘advance’ themselves and bought a name change through ‘Lord’ Robert Farmer; apart from ensuring that they are held up to ridicule by everybody that knows about their sudden elevation, sadly they seem to have acquired a new overbearing manner.

They put Old Colehurst up for sale, but have since removed it from the market, and at the time they insisted that all the staff at Savills, the selling agents, called them Milord and Milady, and the same at Wrekin College where their daughter was at school.

Sir Robert Cowley, 2nd Baron Ardwhallan

Though he has apparently dropped his Barony, it might be interesting to find out the source of his Knighthood as Buckingham Palace and The British Government do not seem to have any record of it. However, he does seem to move around quite a lot in Australia, never staying in one place for long enough to create any permanent friendships, though strangely rather a lot of people seem to be quite glad to say farewell to him.

His associates, such as Warren Clarke Anderson, seem to also boast a similar lack of credibility; Warren claims a “distinguish (sic) [BBA] Hons in International Business Studies, [MBA] Banking & Finance (UK) The Regents University of San Moritz”. The same sort of qualification could be yours for around $500! While Sir or sometimes Dr Andrew Haberfield should be treated with similar caution, especially if any of them offer to raise money for you, but want to be paid an ‘up front’ fee.

I am sure the regulatory authorities would be very interested to hear from anybody with information about ‘Sir’ Robert Cowley, particularly if you have paid him a fee but never succeeded in getting your loan.

Anyone who has dealt with his company Investment Suisse, which he claims is a major Swiss financial institution, might be interested to learn that “Investment Suisse is not authorized by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA (nor the former SFBC, FINMA’s predecessor). Investment Suisse is not a legitimate Swiss company, nor is it a bank and has no physical presence in Switzerland”, according to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority.

It apparently operates out of a well-known accommodation address on London’s Piccadilly, which seems unusual for such a large financial institution, however, usefully, it does house an escort service among a plethora of other companies.

You might also like to study his involvement with the strange Lichtenburg Foundation and the amazing Princess Maya, Baroness de Haynau, apparently ‘Baron’ Cowley is a Minister of State for the Principality of Lichtenburg, though the place only seems to exist in someone’s imagination, I am sure though that their aims are purely charitable as stated. You might further like to find out more about another gentleman connected to the Foundation, Lord Hankins of Ravensburn, his title seems to have as much credibility as ‘Sir’ Robert’s; they tried to hold a charity dinner in Queensland, Australia at A$1000 a plate to raise funds, but unfortunately for them there were so few takers that it got called off.

Latest News: ‘Sir’ Robert has now threatened me with a Notice of Intention to Commence Criminal Prosecution, however, he seems to have joined forces with a gentleman called Bernie O’Brien, using the notepaper of the Affordable Legal Company. Bernie’s credibility unfortunately seems to be about as great as ‘Sir’ Robert’s, you might be interested to see his recent performance on YouTube, in which he was questioned about where money that investors had given to him for producing business loans had disappeared to.

Lord or sometimes Sir Charles Buchanan Turnor

If you come across a Knightship for sale in an auction, then do not attempt to buy it. Unfortunately on any number of occasions the unwary have purchased ‘Lord’ Turnor’s Field Knightships of the Plantagenet Toxophilites, quite often paying several thousand pounds, including Ian Whyman of South Yorkshire, MD of a demolition company, who coughed up a hefty £7,000 for two at an auction in Malmesbury held by Hilditch Auctioneers, who really didn’t bother to do much checking.

Lord Charles lives in the grandly named East Barkwith Manor in Lincolnshire, actually a small cottage, but seemed unwilling to talk when approached by a reporter from The People. Do avoid him like the plague, and please report any Knightships that you spot being offered for sale either to me or directly to the police.

The Right Hon the Lord Mitford

The most worrying fact about His Lordship’s Website - apparently not live at present, pending a redesign - is that "Lord Mitford maintains a small collection of books related to genealogy and the peerage and in his spare time conducts genealogy and peerage research". Help! Talk about the blind leading the blind.

Though he may well own the two Manorial Lordships of the Mitford family - he is not able to call himself The Right Hon the Lord Mitford, just Mr Mark Mitford, Lord of the Honour of Mitford, and Lord of the Manor of Molesden; and certainly not The Right Hon, the use of that is reserved for peers of the rank of Baron, Viscount or Earl, and Members of Her Majesty’s Privy Council.

A letter was sent to us by Pitts-Tucker & Co, dated 26th July 2002, received at VIP Internet two days later, on behalf of their clients Mr Antony Boada and British Feudal Investments, making all sorts of threats of legal action if we did not remove what they considered to be the many defamatory remarks about their clients, and also cease the use of their copyrighted logo.

The logo has been changed, but as far as the rest is concerned, I responded: “Regarding - British Feudal Investments and Mr Antony Boada: My office in England seems to have received a rather strange letter from you, alleging that we are defaming your client. How can the truth be defamatory? Would your client kindly provide proof that the titles that he is selling, including the many on eBay, are genuine, and obviously I will change my opinion?

Best wishes, Richard, Earl of Bradford - a genuine title”

We also received a further letter, dated the 29th of July, referring to other sections of the site in a similar vein, but specifically about the involvement of Pitts-Tucker & Co, and requesting me to remove any reference to them. I replied by e-mail:

Thank you for your second letter, the receipt of it has been noted. Before I respond further though, could you explain why Pitts-Tucker & Co are misusing the apostille from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to persuade your client's (Mr Boada’s) victims that his bogus titles are recognised by the Crown?

If you have not already viewed the information about British Feudal Investments, I would suggest that you might enjoy reading about their exploits.

Then September the 16th was a red letter day in the history of the Fake Titles website as I was faxed missives from both Pitts-Tucker & Co and Mario Lamar, Boada’s lawyer in Miami. Not too surprisingly Mr Lamar will not allow me to reproduce his varied threats, but I replied as follows: ”The British Feudal Investments logo has been removed from the banner for the British Feudal Investments page on Fake Titles, and also from the Mudslinging page, now it only contains words; surely you cannot object to that. The Hyperlinks have been removed, and we have merely included directions on how to find the British Feudal Investments site.

We would be delighted to received proof that the titles your client sells are genuine, and would then be happy to remove any reference to him and British Feudal Investments from the Fake Titles site, however, given the huge quantity of letters and e-mails of complaint about him that we have in our possession, without having received any that have praised his services, I think that you may find the task a rather difficult one. I also feel that you should examine very carefully the allegations made on your client's site, see Bradford Scam on British Feudal Investments site, as there are several serious accusations against me, most of which are actionable; it would be very easy to prove, for instance, that I am not involved in a Scam to sell a title for GBP 250,000, and there are no 'Cookies' on my site, whereas there are plenty on his.

I should warn you that I have kept a copy of the Bradford Scam page from his website, and would suggest that you stop making any continuing threats of action against me, before I decide to do something about your client's strange and libellous allegations.”

Also if you want to learn more about Antony Boada and Pitts-Tucker & Co and how they operate to part unsuspecting title seekers from their money, do visit the excellently compiled Noble Scams, prepare to be amazed by the depths to which they will sink.

Strangely, having complained vociferously about the actions of eBay in selling not only the spurious Scottish Lairdships, but also more recently the manufactured titles of Boada, I got the following e-mail from eBay on the 31st of July. “We regret to inform you that your eBay account has been suspended due to the violation of our site policy below: False or missing contact information - Falsifying or omitting your name, address, and/or telephone number (including use of fax machines, pager numbers, modems or disconnected numbers). Due to the suspension of this account, please be advised you are prohibited from using eBay in any way. This prohibition includes the registering of a new account.” Was this a total coincidence? After two days of complaining about it, my registration was re-confirmed.

On September 10th 2002 Sovereign Classics also joined in the hunt for Bradford with the following illiterate offering:

“We in the process to check your allegations by our law firm and lawyer of peerage law. As a matter of fact you cannot do any allegations without any proof or evidences. That means what you are mentioning on your site that we are offering fake titles is illegal because you have no evidences about what and your partners are doing. You have to understand that you have not the right to say that this person is guilty with any evidences. That's what the law say and if you do so you will get a fine for that. Again that's what the law say. We do a lot of nobility affairs in the Germanic area legally and you give the impression we are doing those things illegal or with fake titles. As I mentioned in a previous email that we are working with a very high ranked German nobility who is very close related to the royal family and that person is more than up set about your wrong allegations. He will discuss with lawyers too and will go after that legally too. Furthermore, we or our lawyers have got evidences about your very close relationship to those companies what you mention as good guys. One of those company is selling titles like the other companies are doing. The other company have the proof of authentic titles. Why you are saying they selling fake titles? We have the very strong feeling that you are doing a not so honest competition battle in the title business. There are some not so nice things what was happened on that end. We have to proof of dealing with original titles at our law firm. We treat all those things in privacy, but we will disclose all those things at court. Further we will sue all those people are trying to attack and doing allegations like you do without evidences. As a matter of fact we will sue for 1 Million GBP. You have your very last chance to clean that mess. If you ignore our message or going further on illegal steps than we will see definitely at court.”

As usual nothing happened. However, they continued to further threaten me; the last offering was in February 2004, this accused me of everything from fraud in Spain to being a well-known drunk, it might be amusing if it weren’t so puerile. Apparently though they have now gone out of business, and have been removed from Fake Titles as a result, somehow I do not feel that they will be missed.