Are you one in 49,000?

Loughton_Monkey

There is no clue here as to how these 49,000 have got themselves onto this target list. It would be interesting to learn if anyone here gets such a letter from FSA.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11937774

Fraud warning after hit-list uncovered

Some 49,000 people are being told they are at risk of being targeted by fraudsters after their names were discovered on a hit-list.
The names were on a master list used by boiler room fraudsters who try to sell worthless shares.

It mainly featured people living in London, Scotland and the south-east of England - all of whom will now receive warning letters from the City watchdog.

Four lists have been found this year by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

"This latest list is the biggest we have ever recovered and we are contacting every single person on it in the hope we can stop people losing money," said Margaret Cole, the FSA's managing director of enforcement and financial crime.

"Even if only one in 10 we contact heed our warning it could mean around £96m is not invested in these scams.

"Boiler room fraudsters often sound like the real deal so it is easy to be drawn in by their professional and high pressure sales tactics. In reality however, the shares are worthless or do not exist and the money is lost forever."

The scam, which costs the UK an estimated £200m a year, sees fraudsters call potential investors and put them under pressure to buy non-tradable, overpriced or non-existent shares.

chris_m

Hopefully it's not people who have spent some years telling "missold endowment claims" firms cold callers to **** off and are now regularly having to tell "missold PPI claims" firms cold calling liars the same - else I'll have to be careful ;-)

dzug1

A common way is to trawl the shareholder lists of large companies

Reaper

These lists are commonly known as "suckers lists". They are people who have fallen for a scam before and are considered likely to do so again.

Scam companies highly value these lists and will sometimes exhange or sell them to others.

It sounds like the FSA have got their hands on some and are trying to educate the targets about the typical ruses they can expect to be hit with.

Hopefully some will listen. There have been some posters on this board who went ahead with investments even after we told them it was a scam (eg post 13 onwards here).

C_Mababejive

No one has been defrauded yet,they are just on a list. If some !!!!!! phoned me offering me shares at 2p in the Acme washing machine company and told me they were just about to sign a big deal to supply Chinese laundries for the next 30 years so shares will rocket, I'd tell him to do one.

Anyone who gets suckered usually deserves it for being to greedy/gullible/stupid.

jimjames

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Anyone who gets suckered usually deserves it for being to greedy/gullible/stupid.

The curious thing I've noticed on these scam warnings is that they suggest that it isn't just novices but experienced investors that are tricked into parting with huge amounts of cash.

I just find this very hard to believe but if it really is the case then they must have some very convincing scripts they use.

Old_Slaphead

These guys crack me up.

Ask them if company has a website or product brochures or any accounts you can look at.

Ask them why if they're such a great investment then why are they' offering them to you?

Tell them you want to think about it for a few days & to call you back when you've spoken to your financial adviser.

As C_M says, for the greedy, gullible or stupid. If it looks too good to be true then it most likely will be.

Loughton_Monkey

I've certainly had these guys on the phone to me, but not for about two years.

I once had £100 or so of shares in a dot.com which went belly-up and I got calls from people mentioning that particular share. But their pitch was always about a "big" mover that they don't know about yet, but is due to be released on Thursday....

I remember simply telling the guy to bog off, but a few months later when I got a different (but similar pitch) I stayed with it just out of curiousity. What they came back with was a named share (registered in some foreign country, but with a Swiss bank account) and I was expected to transfer my "investment" to the swiss bank. Having satisfied my curiousity, I remember my thoughts were that you'd have to be pretty dense to go for this. 1. Call from someone you don't know. 2. To invest in a company you've never heard of. 3. Requiring the money to be wired abroad.

Who is ever going to fall for this?

antrobus

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

There is no clue here as to how these 49,000 have got themselves onto this target list. It would be interesting to learn if anyone here gets such a letter from FSA.

I got a letter from the FSA a few month back about being on some 'target list' or other. (I suspect that the fraudsters get the info from PLC share registers.)

Didn't bother me. Been phoned up a number of times by boiler room chappies about their wonderful investment opportunities, and amused myself wasting their time for a while before I got bored with it.