Southbank Investment Research Review – Scam Or Legit

Southbank Investment Research is an investing publisher that mostly serves the UK.

There's a lot of different editors and newsletters for sale here and this review will give an overview of this company.

Additionally, you'll get some insights into how they work that you won't find anywhere else.

My hope is you'll be able to read this review and be able to determine if the services are right for you.

Let's get started!

How Southbank Investment Research REALLY Works

Hey - I'm Dylan (the person writing this review).

I started this website about 5 years ago because I wanted to fight back against online scams and manipulative online marketing programs.

I am an online marketer and have unique insights into the industry that others don't have.

I think of myself as a tour guide.

I've spent the last year reviewing HUNDREDS of investing services and know this market better than 99.9% of people out there.

As your tour guide I feel obligated to let you know what exactly you're getting yourself into when you buy a product from a publisher like Southbank Investment Research.

Here's everything you need to know about this company before buying:

Upsells, Upsells, Upsells

There's BIG money in selling investing newsletters.

It's a multi-billion dollar industry and some publishers are making more than $500 million every year

The thing you need to know about these publishers is they are fined tuned machines.

They know exactly what to say and what emotions to target to get you to buy.

More importantly they know how to get you to buy MULTIPLE times.

The investing sales funnel is the same no matter the publisher or company.

They offer a cheap product with a long form sales presentation. Many times they pay a celebrity or well known figure to pitch these products.

Southbank Investment Research is currently using famous political Brit Nigel Farage:

The goal is to get you to buy a cheap investing newsletter anywhere from $49 per year to around $199 per year.

But you don't make hundreds of millions a year selling $49 subscriptions.

Internet marketers know the easiest person to sell to is someone that's already bought a product from you.

Once you enter your credit card details and email address into Southbank Investment Research you will be bombarded with promotional offers every day.

This is where Southbank Investment Research will try to sell you the services that cost THOUSANDS per year.

So if you decide to buy anything from this publisher just understand that you are entering a sophisticated and persuasive sales funnel.

The Cheaper Products Usually Perform Better

Here's another thing that I find interesting about the investing newsletter world.

The cheaper newsletters (the ones they use to get you into the sales funnel) typically perform better than the expensive upsells.

There's a reason for this.

The cheaper products usually aren't as splashy and make normal recommendations.

People are willing to pay $50 to be told to buy Apple or Amazon.. but they don't want to spend thousands to be told to buy those stocks.

To get someone to pay thousands you need a unique angle.

Maybe a service that focuses on small cap stocks or biotech stocks or some advanced option service.

The problem is these strategies are usually very risk and volatile.

You can lose a lot money if you stray too far away from well known stocks.

After reading thousands of customer reviews, though, I can pretty confidently say the newsletters that are cheap and focus on standard investing strategies do the best.

No Refunds On Expensive Products

There must be some sort of playbook out there on how to run an investing publisher.

Because they all really do operate in the same manner (the truth is most publishers are actually only owned by a handful of companies which is why they're all the same).

One thing all publishers do is offer a nice refund on their cheap products but not on their expensive ones.

A common thing you'll see is a full money back guarantee on the service that's $49 per year but not one on the service that's $5000 per year.

Usually the expensive products come with a credit refund.

This means you can only get a refund and use the money on other newsletters at the publisher.

This is what Southbank Investment Research does.

This is also another reason to stay away from the expensive upsells.

If you lose money or don't like what you get, you're not getting your money back.

Recommended: The Best Place To Get Stock Picks

Customer Reviews Aren't Great

Another bad sign for Southbank Investment Research is customer reviews aren't good (although there's some good ones).

Here's a look at some that I found most interesting:

Getting Charges Too Much

One common customer complaint I saw is people claiming to be charged for products they didn't buy.

There's many people saying this.

For example, here's one customer saying they signed up for one newsletter and are now being charged for others:

The subscriptions seem to auto-renew automatically as well.

So when the year is up they just charge you card again.

Some customers, like Brian below, couldn't get their money back when they were charged again:

Lots Of Promotional Emails

Like I said in the last section you need prepare yourself for the upsells and promotional emails.

Many customers aren't expecting to get bombarded with these sales pitches every day and most people seem to hate it.

Here's an example of someone getting 21 emails in just 7 days:

Here's another customer noting the amount of promotional emails and claiming the promotions are constantly contradicting each other:

Many People Are Losing Money

There's a lot of customers complaining about losing money too.

Now something to keep in mind is stocks are down pretty big at the moment everywhere.

You'd have a hard time finding anyone that's up in this environment (however my favorite newsletter is up 15% this year).

Regardless customers aren't happy.

For example one customer claims they're down on basically all recommendations from Southbank Investment Research and some are down as big as 60%:

Another customer claims he's been measuring the portfolio of Frontier Tech Investors (the most popular newsletter offered by the publisher) and the picks are down 33% since the beginning of 2021:

That's not good!

The Fleet Street Letter Seems Popular

The product that has the best customer reviews is The Fleet Street Wealth Builders and Southbank claims this newsletter was started in 1938!

If true that would be quite the accomplishment.

Apparently the newsletter predicted the second World War..

It's currently headed by Charlie Morris and spent many years at HSBC managing billions in clients funds.

This seems to be the most impressive newsletter offered by Southbank and customer reviews are good:

Southbank Investment Research FAQ's

Still have some questions about this company?

Here's answers to any remaining questions you might have.

1) What Is The Most Popular Newsletter At Southbank?

I have a tool the can measure how often terms are searched on Google.

There's A LOT of newsletters at Southbank and many get no searches on Google.

But the one people seem most interested in, based on searches, is Frontier Tech Investor.

It's run by Sam Volkering (previously Eoin Treacy). 

This newsletter is not well reviewed, though.

One of the best places to see customer insights about investing newsletters is Stock Gumshoe.

Over 60 customers have rated Frontier Tech Investor at Stock Gumshoe and gets a dismal 2.1/5 rating:

This is really bad.

Like I said in the last section Fleet Street Letter seems to be the best reviewed.

2) What Are The Prices At Southbank?

There's a pretty big range in terms of price.. this is what all investing newsletters do.

Remember the people at Southbank Investment Research know how to make you spend as much money as possible.

All publishers lure you in with a cheap bait product and then try to get you to upgrade for thousands of dollars.

Many customers complain about how aggressive the emails and upsells are.

3) What Investing Strategies Are At Southbank?

There's so many different investing strategies because there's so many newsletters and publishers.

There's standard stock services, crypto, energy newsletters, tech newsletters, gold and more.

It all depends on what newsletter you buy.

My only advice would be to stay away from anything crypto related and anything that focuses on esoteric topics like climate change technology.

4) Do You Recommend Southbank?

I wouldn't recommend any of the products that cost thousands of dollars a year.

Those will likely underperform your expectations and there's always a similar investing newsletter that's more affordable. 

Frontier Tech Investor seems to be badly reviewed so I'd stay away from that one too.

I guess Fleet Street Letter would be my top recommendation.

Recommended: The Best Place To Get Stock Picks

Southbank Investment Research Conclusion

Ok so that's the end of my review of Southbank Investment Research.

I typically review American publications but after going through Southbank I can say there's no real difference between UK investing publishers and American ones.

They both tend to focus on a conservative audience, make big promises of returns, use celebrities to push sales, spam your email with promotions and more.

UK publishers and American publishers don't offer money back guarantees for their expensive newsletters and instead offer credit refunds.

It's all the same stuff.

In the end a couple newsletters might be worth buying but there's just better options out there.

Here's A Better Opportunity

I'd pass on most of the newsletters at Southbank Investment Research.

The good news is there's plenty of alternative newsletters to picks from.

I've personally reviewed HUNDREDS of investing newsletters..

To see my favorite (which is very affordable), click below: