You say they "might" be legal certificates, can you expand on that?
They send you a paper that it's supposed to be a legal certificate conforming you have those stocks.
An example:
http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z335/afdi2/erti.jpgOf course, I'm not able to tell if this is completely legal or not. They send them 90 days after your purchase (for free), but if you want them you can pay some cash to get them at the moment you want it. The point is to not send the certificates if you are willing to sell your stocks before 90 days.
Hmm...starting to sound even more shilly...
In order to invest in private companies, you should be
a) a sophisticated investor
b) able to do due diligence research on said companies
The main idea is that the research is done by them, and they only charge you from your benefits (your monthly rate).
Instead, you have to rely on Uinvest's assurance that these companies are legit.
The fact that at least one source of his income might be that these companies are legit gives me confidence.
So you have to ask yourself, do you think it's good idea for a "noob" to send a check to Eastern Europe to an investment firm you know next to nothing about that invests your money in companies you know next to nothing about? The answer is of course no.
My first answer would be no. But after researching a little the answer is somewhat blurry. Now the answer is more like you can try with a few money and let's see.
But hey! Look at this community of investors, let's see if someone have experience with Uinvest before investing on it so as to not lose not even that small invest for the try.
You can easily and quickly lose all your money in a private equity investment. You don't know the dividend rate you receive and you don't know that anyone will want to buy your shares at any price in the future. Private equity investments, especially of this nature, are extremely risky.
Your stocks are repurchased by Uinvest itself. Not by another person. Although you have the possibility to sell it before the due date (when Uinvest buys it). So you can win some extra cash if you are able to sell it before.
Another fact that gives me confidence is that they have a forum with 33000 registered users and 8000 active users. They all might be bots or paid person, who knows... But if you use Occam's Razor. They are no whining or crazy about some kind of fraud. Of course you can say that all this is just a falsehood. But again, Occam's Razor.