Fears mounting over investments that are 'too good to be true' This would help investors distinguish between regulated advice and investments and unregulated options. Regulated investments are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which can repay up to £50,000 per person per investment when a provider fails. And, if investors feel they have received poor advice, they can complain to the financial ombudsman, the arbitration service that can intervene where a regulated firm and customer have reached deadlock in a dispute. To gain regulated status, firms have to undergo a range of checks that can be arduous and expensive. Those that don't bother with this, or fail the process, remain unregulated. Unregulated firms play by their own rules. That could include hiding a whacking 20pc fee in a 40-page brochure, or charging extra commission to cover unforeseen costs, or worse. And if in the worst-case scenario the company collapses, or turns out to be fake, there is no recourse to the compensation scheme. There are several types of unregulated investment. The first are "unregulated collective investment schemes" or Ucis. Some can be attractive, offering investors exposure to unusual assets that do not perform in line or "correlate" with other investments. These range from investment funds targeting fine wines and classic cars to agricultural crops and carbon credits. Some are legitimate and operated by respected, expert firms. Others are outright scams. They are not supposed to be marketed directly to the general public and the FCA is particularly concerned that there is widespread poor advice surrounding their sale. A second type of unregulated investment involves "fractional ownership." Here, an asset is split up into individual units, plots or investments (storage units and car parks are common) and then sold off individually. Such fractional ownership investments are often marketed more aggressively than Ucis investments, and are equally risky. Two high-profile cases of unregulated investments going wrong include Harlequin Properties, a set of holiday homes in the Caribbean into which 6,000 people invested hundreds of millions of pounds, and the "tax-dodging" film schemes into which celebrities including David Beckham and Anne Robinson funnelled millions.