Originally posted on sheriffsofgurus August 8th 2014
Many in the industry cannot understand the relationship between ADVFN and Tom Winnifrith. Most financial websites would not touch him with a bargepole but ADVFN or more precisely Clem Chambers allow him to use their domain name, servers, software and service infrastructure to host his toxic shareprophets (commonly referred to as shiteprofits) blog. Clearly there is a relationship here that is hard to fathom. Unless Clem Chambers was born yesterday he must be aware that being associated with Winnifrith does great harm to the reputation of ADVFN. Dozens of subscribers have cancelled their subscriptions because of this tie up and have publicly stated so on their bulletin boards and others. So how many have cancelled non publicly as well. But its ignored, surely they understand that it is not only destructive to the credibility of ADVFN but also they are losing more and more monthly revenues because of it. Maybe the shareholders of ADVFN are not aware of this loss of revenue and cause of it, maybe the company is run as a sole trader enterprise. Clem Chambers has been told on several occasions to end this relationship. At a recent board meeting he was made aware of the cancelling subscribers but brushed it aside against the advice of others. Seemingly not concerned to see the companies revenues plummet and reputation suffer. It just doesn’t add up, ADVFNs competitors are laughing though, they are the winners here.
In case Mr Chambers is just incredibly naïve lets have a look at some of Tom Winnifrith’s career. There is more but this will do for starters. He seems to have failed at all the business ventures he has ever undertaken. Now hides behind a mask of journalist but the reality is he’s just an angry blogger. Some read his blog out of an apparent morbid fascination similar to that of Victorians when visiting circus freak shows or when people slow down to view a recent car crash. He attempted being a fund manager but his 2 T1ps funds became the worse performers in their sector losing 41% and 34% in one year alone. He was sacked so that real fund managers could come in and save them. He was the CEO of a gold mining company but he was quickly sacked after the board realised the mistake they made. He has had various journalism jobs previously but appears to have been sacked or forced out of every one of them. Tried tipping shares on TV but his record was so appalling that he was sacked. Being associated with Winnifrith is a bad career move for any journalist as he is regarded as toxic and a village idiot by many experienced hacks. After these failures he attempted to relocate and reinvent himself in the Isle of Man but those Manx are no fools and saw right through him. He scuttled back to London with his tail between his legs to manage a run down pizza joint called The Real Man Pizza Company. It has pretty appalling reviews for food, hygiene and service on TripAdvisor. The Food Standards Agency gave it 2 out of 5 for hygiene, which is just above them calling in environmental health to tape up the doors and windows and applying a Hygiene Prohibition Order. Effectively closing it down. Apparently he does not own any shares himself as he is too afraid of being sued. That in itself should tell you enough about his honesty and integrity, also the fact that he doesn’t seem to be able to afford to buy anything. People often comment on his lack of hygiene and diminishing personal appearance. His incredibly high and bloated opinion of himself only seems to be matched by his monumental failures in career, investments and in personal lifestyle.
He uses multiple usernames on the ADVN bulletin boards. He writes a toxic offensive blog mostly full of sensationalist innuendo , accusations that even when proven to be incorrect are never retracted or apologised for. He seems to have a long-standing vendetta against Gulf Keystone petroleum shareholders, calling them muppets, morons and wan*ers. He is accused of having little regard for objectiveness as he normally writes in concert with others for a shorting campaign, as their obedient puppy. When referring to women in business he seems to have a condescending tone in his blogging. Some have called him a bully for the way he acted towards a woman at a recent public encounter so maybe its not just women in business he has issues with.
Now recently we have Tom Winnifrith publicly calling someone a paedophile because they disagreed with him. This person was a subscriber to his blog on ADVFN. Winnifrith publicly released the mans email address and details which should be protected by the data protection act while accusing him of being a paedophile, this just for disagreeing with him. This is disgusting behaviour even from a man with as little self-respect as Winnifrith so what are ADVFN doing about. It seems nothing, with the patronage of Clem Chambers he seems to be free to do whatever he wants. Breaking the Data Protection Act is a major issue here, how safe are peoples personal details in this relationship between Winnifrith and ADVFN ?
We would like ADVFN to publicly answer these questions.
1 – Are ADVFN aware that Tom Winnifrith is using their website to publicly accuse people of being paedophiles.
2 – If they are aware have they now terminated all relationships with him.
3 – If they are aware and have not terminated all relationships with him do they see a financial website and accusations of peadophilia to be somehow related and therefore there is no issue to be dealt with as its acceptable behaviour in their eyes.
4 – How many people in the UK have cancelled their subscriptions directly stating the reason being the relationship with Tom Winnifrith and how many do they suspect the real number to be including those who have not stated it.
5 Has ADVFN shown good corporate governance and informed its shareholders in accounts or annual reports that a proportion of falling UK revenues are proven to be attributable to the relationship with Tom Winnifrith.
6 – Are ADVFN aware that Tom Winnifrith is apparently breaking the Data Protection Act on their website which is a civil and criminal offence.
7 – If they are aware have they now terminated all relationships with him.
8 – Does Tom Winnifrith have access to ADVFNs user database.
9 – Have ADVFN ever released personal details of users and/or paying subscribers to Tom Winnifrith.
10 – Do ADVFN understand and adhere to the Data Protection Act and realise that releasing or transferring users personal data without the users permission to any 3rd party is a criminal and civil offence for both the company and individual releasing it.
There seems to be a lot of red flags in this relationship between ADVFN and Tom Winnifrith that are both morally and legally concerning. It just doesn’t add up for ADVFN, its lose, lose, lose for them. They gain nothing, there is no business reason for it, they lose credibility, lose subscribers and now have their site associated with accusations of paedophilia. What on earth has a financial website got to do with accusations of paedophilia, its sick and now accusations of breaking the Data Protection Act. This relationship is completely illogical from almost every business perspective but he seems to be protected by Clem Chambers. Maybe there is more to the relationship of Winnifrith and Chambers, something beyond friendship, something not in the public domain otherwise this surely could not happen. There are issues here that are very serious. We hope that ADFVN can understand this and that a representative has the decency and respect for their users and paying subscribers to publicly respond to these questions. ADVFN is a publicly quoted company with shareholders, if ADVFN or Tom Winnifrith acting for them have contravened the Data Protection Act it needs to be looked into by the police. How safe are people going to feel now giving their personal details to ADVFN, especially name, address and credit card details knowing that Tom Winnifrith may have access to them ?
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