Companies calling themselves Vado Administration and Startplant Services are running a recovery room scam

Cut and pasted websites are never a good sign.

The recovery room scam is one of the most unpleasant aspects of fraud. When someone has been scammed, they become more likely to fall for another scam. Recovery room scammers contact people who have been scammed with the news that they can get their money back. For an upfront fee, of course. Once that money is handed over, it’s gone forever.

MH Carbon

REDD-Monitor first wrote about a scam company called MH Carbon in January 2013. It was incorporated in the UK by Jonathan Cocks and Gavin Manerowski in September 2010. On 24 October 2012, Jeffrey Razaq took over as director of the company.

MH Carbon operated as a boiler room, selling worthless carbon credits to more than 500 people and scamming them out of a total of about £18.7 million.

In May 2013, the company went into voluntary liquidation. The company was finally dissolved in October 2020.

In July 2015, Jeffrey Razaq was disqualified from acting as a company director for 14 years, “for conduct while acting at MH Carbon Limited”.

Razaq moved on to his next scam: Essex and London Properties. The company claimed to buy properties on the Crossrail route from Essex to London. In fact, the company only bought one house. More than 800 people lost a total of £13.7 million.

Razaq was convicted of money laundering, but received a sentence of only 12 months in prison suspended for one year with 200 hours of community service.

Back to MH Carbon. The company was part of a web of scam companies that were selling worthless carbon credits as investments. In May 2014, the UK High Court shut down the companies following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

In the Notice of final account prior to dissolution about MH Carbon, Grant Thornton, the liquidators, wrote that, “Unfortunately, there are insufficient funds available for a distribution to be made to creditors.”

The recovery room scam

The recovery room scam relies on “sucker lists” which include names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, and background information on people who have been scammed. Sucker lists are traded between boiler room scammers and used to entice them into the next scam.

In March 2022, an MH Carbon victim contacted REDD-Monitor. Let’s call him John. He wrote that:

I have been contacted by a company called SCY Insolvency Legal  claiming they have been appointed to  deal with the distribution  of assets of MH Carbon and or it’s directors. Has anyone heard of this firm?

I wrote back to John, pointing out that this looked like a recovery room scam. I asked how SCY Insolvency Legal knew his details — the answer was obviously that John’s details are on a sucker list.

A large part of SCY Insolvency Legal’s website was cut and pasted from RDC Insolvency Support Limited’s website. RDC Insolvency was dissolved on 15 February 2022. SCY Insolvency Legal’s website was registered on 13 October 2021 — almost five years after the company was incorporated.

Vado Administration

This week, John contacted REDD-Monitor again:

I have been contacted by Vado administration telling me they have funds for me from MH Carbon & I have to contact Startplant services to receive my money. Has anyone heard of these companies.

I wrote back to John, pointing out that this looked like a recovery room scam. I asked how Vado Administration knew his details — the answer was obviously that John’s details are on a sucker list.

Grant Thornton were the liquidators of MH Carbon, not Vado Administration. I asked John how Vado Administration attempted to explain to him how they had become involved in the MH Carbon case and where they claim to have found the money, almost five years after MH Carbon went into liquidation?

And why should John contact Startplant Services to receive the money? If Startplant Services had the money wouldn’t they contact John directly?

Vado Administration’s website (vado-admin.co.uk) was registered on 11 March 2025. According to Companies House the company was incorporated in 2011. Why would the company wait 14 years before creating a website, and shortly after having done so, contact John and presumably others about MH Carbon? This looks a lot like someone is using the name of a registered company without that company’s knowledge.

Much of Vado Administration’s website is cut and pasted from another company’s website (AABRS). On the left is AABRS’ website and on the rights Vado Administration’s — the only difference (apart from the photographs) is the name of the companies:

AABRS has a chap called James who pops up in the bottom left corner of the company’s website.

I thought I should tell James that his company’s website had been cut and pasted by a scam operation calling itself Vado Administration. The conversation did not go particularly well:

Startplant Services

Moving on to the company calling itself Startplant Services. The company registered its first website (splantservices.com) on 15 November 2024. The company registered an almost identical website (www.spservices-ltd.com) on 15 December 2024.

Sure enough, parts of Startplant Services’ website are cut and pasted from a company called Horne & Sons’ website.

According to Companies House the company was incorporated in August 1993. Why would the company wait 31 years before creating a website, and shortly after having done so, contact John and presumably others about MH Carbon? This looks like someone is using the name of a registered company without that company’s knowledge.

If you have been scammed and are contacted out of the blue by companies calling themselves Vado Administration, Startplant Services, SCY Insolvency Legal, or anything else for that matter, please collect the company’s details, put the phone down, and contact Action Fraud.