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This is a good idea in theory but in practice it looks pretty scammish, or, at least, not reliable. The website has none of the typical obnoxious financial dis

This is a good idea in theory but in practice it looks pretty scammish, or, at least, not reliable. The website has none of the typical obnoxious financial disclaimers, which makes it look very amateurish. It does not appear to be registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority nor Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Investing is done by sending money manually directly via bank transfer. 5% return "guaranteed" seems hard to believe. You must be evening out the average returns which each individual solar panel investment provides, which means you must have some significant buffer money. If you have this money, then why don't you have any money to spend on anything to make your business look trustworthy in any way? Why have you spent resources to develop an app, when it seems to me that the core of your business should be offering reliable financial services - which could be interacted with via a single form instead of an app. The Terms of Service look like an extremely generic set to describe a website, and not a financial service. They have also clearly not been reviewed properly by a lawyer; for example there are errors like: "Country refers to: Delaware". I would advise anyone to think very carefully before "investing" via this.

jumbly888 4y ago
Grabbing a random paragraph from the TOS and searching for it turns up thousands of identical boiler plate. That, plus the reasons in a comment I made below, makes it difficult to avoid concluding that this is a complete scam. I am sure that OP will be happy to correct me if I am wrong, and to clarify how the absolutely glaring red flags are simply my misinterpretation.
- kekuramusa 4y ago
  Hey thanks for this feedback. I'm a co-founder at Nowala. While I can say that we're not a scam at all, why should you trust that haha We've noted the terms of service point. If you could highlight other issues that lead you to mistrust the service, that would be super helpful!
  - jumbly888 4y ago
    It would certainly be helpful of me to point out "this is where you're failing to clear the credibility bar" I'm sure that your professional advisers (Lawyers, Accountants) could do a far better job than I could, I suggest you also consult them. I have no reason not to give you the benefit of the doubt. Would you be so kind as to post the link to your entry on the FCA register? Equally, would you be so kind as to post the link to your entry on the ICO register? Finally, could you provide a link where I could download the prospectus for this investment? Those are some things that you could do to increase trust. The upside of you actually being on the level outweighs the downside of the more likely case that you're not. So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and suggest that you've become over-excited at too early a stage and have not fully thought this through (you're only 31, after all). I would recommend sitting down with a lawyer and making sure you've got everything in order legally. Right now, you're committing a criminal offence by participating in regulated activities without FCA authority (https://www.gov.uk/registration-with-the-financial-conduct-authority https://www.gov.uk/registration-with-the-financial-conduct-a...) Please consider your next steps carefully.
    - kekuramusa 4y ago
      We've actually only served family and friends. Everyone else goes to a waitlist. Just to respond to the criminal offense part. Thanks for your list!
kekuramusa 4y ago
Hey thanks for this detailed feedback. I'm a co-founder at Nowala. Seems like we have some work to do for an online launch as our early customers come from people who know and trust us. Our FCA regulation is in process but we still made sure to launch early. On the "guaranteed" money, we do state that it's an "4-5% estimated annual return for 2 years"... If you saw somewhere that our returns are guaranteed on the site, it would be helpful for us if you could say where so we can fix that mistake. On your launch point. We actually launched over email to our family and friends! But I'm a software engineer so it was quite easy (and free) to launch a quick Expo app in attempt to test some of our key assumptions. Thanks for pointing out the flaw with our Terms of Service. We were originally a Delaware LLC so we'll need to update that. If you could point out any other issues/concerns that stand out to you, that would be super helpful!

jumbly888 4y ago

Grabbing a random paragraph from the TOS and searching for it turns up thousands of identical boiler plate. That, plus the reasons in a comment I made below, makes it difficult to avoid concluding that this is a complete scam. I am sure that OP will be happy to correct me if I am wrong, and to clarify how the absolutely glaring red flags are simply my misinterpretation.

kekuramusa 4y ago
Hey thanks for this feedback. I'm a co-founder at Nowala. While I can say that we're not a scam at all, why should you trust that haha We've noted the terms of service point. If you could highlight other issues that lead you to mistrust the service, that would be super helpful!
- jumbly888 4y ago
  It would certainly be helpful of me to point out "this is where you're failing to clear the credibility bar" I'm sure that your professional advisers (Lawyers, Accountants) could do a far better job than I could, I suggest you also consult them. I have no reason not to give you the benefit of the doubt. Would you be so kind as to post the link to your entry on the FCA register? Equally, would you be so kind as to post the link to your entry on the ICO register? Finally, could you provide a link where I could download the prospectus for this investment? Those are some things that you could do to increase trust. The upside of you actually being on the level outweighs the downside of the more likely case that you're not. So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and suggest that you've become over-excited at too early a stage and have not fully thought this through (you're only 31, after all). I would recommend sitting down with a lawyer and making sure you've got everything in order legally. Right now, you're committing a criminal offence by participating in regulated activities without FCA authority (https://www.gov.uk/registration-with-the-financial-conduct-authority https://www.gov.uk/registration-with-the-financial-conduct-a...) Please consider your next steps carefully.
  - kekuramusa 4y ago
    We've actually only served family and friends. Everyone else goes to a waitlist. Just to respond to the criminal offense part. Thanks for your list!

kekuramusa 4y ago

Hey thanks for this detailed feedback. I'm a co-founder at Nowala. Seems like we have some work to do for an online launch as our early customers come from people who know and trust us. Our FCA regulation is in process but we still made sure to launch early. On the "guaranteed" money, we do state that it's an "4-5% estimated annual return for 2 years"... If you saw somewhere that our returns are guaranteed on the site, it would be helpful for us if you could say where so we can fix that mistake. On your launch point. We actually launched over email to our family and friends! But I'm a software engineer so it was quite easy (and free) to launch a quick Expo app in attempt to test some of our key assumptions. Thanks for pointing out the flaw with our Terms of Service. We were originally a Delaware LLC so we'll need to update that. If you could point out any other issues/concerns that stand out to you, that would be super helpful!