Equiniti - is this a legitimate letter?

PurplePuzzle

This is the first time I have said anything on here, so I hope it is ok to just chip in here.

I have spent this evening searching for information on this company and these letters, and whilst they do appear to be real, I did however spend quite a lot of time discussing with my mother the possibility of any forgotten shares or investments and it seems very unlikely.

She is going to ring my brother tomorrow for his advice but for now I would be very interested to see just how many have received these letters and if they are genuine.

I have done several searches tonight and cannot find any references to fraudulent behavior in relation to this company, nor have I found any negative comments regarding this company.

To me it does feel like a scam of some sort purely because of my mother not being the only one to have received this letter.

Maybe someone will be able to shed some light on this.

fridgeman2

My mum has also had this letter which is very suspicous. Although the envelope was addressed correctly to my mum why is the paragraph starting "If you are not the individual named above" etc included. You would just put it back in the post as not known or no longer at this address. I am certainly not sending any id. A utility bill is half the documents needed for identity theft. A birth cert can be picked up with a little bit of personal knowledge and a few pounds.

GustyGardenGalaxy

Must admit that I'm still a bit suspicious, yet everything seems to check out - the address on the letter matches the one on their web site and I can find nothing bad about them whatsoever.

A WHOIS on their web site reveals that the site itself has been around for four years:

http://www.whois.net/whois/equiniti.com

So what else to do?

Maybe they are just poor letter writers.

Oh, and according to this news article:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/markets/article.html?in_article_id=435452&in_page_id=3

Equiniti are Britain's biggest share-registration company.

Also, according to this:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2889311/Daemon-Group-Case-Study-Equiniti

As of 2007, Equiniti is the new name for Lloyds TSB Registrars ........... although apparently it's not any more!


Another question on them and their letters, dated a couple of months ago:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101120093812AAHZLjR

GustyGardenGalaxy

This is interesting:

The letter sent to my mother had Equiniti's address as:

Aspect House
Spencer road
Lancing
West Sussex
BN99 6AH

Yet on their web site their post code is:

BN99 6DA

when I phoned them yesterday and queried this the guy I spoke to said that a few post codes applied to their address.


The BN99 6AH is for Lloyds TSB Registrars, but at this address:

The Causeway
Worthing
BN99 6AH

http://www.ihgplc.com/files/reports/ar2005/downloads/ProxyForm_Instruct_1.pdf

Most puzzling ............

Still, it surely can't do any harm to send the requested details to the address as registered on their web site (and on other legit sites that mention them) using the BN99 6DA post code ............ ?

caz07

hi all
for what it's worth my husband has had dealings with equitini,
he sell his shares with them, they are somthing to do with lloyds tsb as well i think when he buys the firms shares they are held by lloyds untill they mature and then he rings equitni to sell them for a small fee.

hope this helps

carol

[Deleted User]

Hi,

Equiniti is a well established company, and is registrar for many of the Footsie 100 companies, including Lloyds Banking Group, scroll down to Registrar Services.

It may be that they are trying to trace the owners of various shares, because they have been sending out dividend cheques, and these are being returned or not cashed, so it might be to your advantage to contact them.

Oh, and they do have different post codes, so wouldn't worry about that.

Gaffy

I can assure everyone that Equiniti is a reputable company, they are the country largest company registrar and they also have a share trading website at https://www.shareview.co.uk which I have used for many years.

I actually live very close to them so instead of posting documents I prefer to hand them in personally which they are happy to accept.

GustyGardenGalaxy

That's good to know - however, I think they need some lessons on how to write letters.

jimjames

GustyGardenGalaxy wrote: »

Still, it surely can't do any harm to send the requested details to the address as registered on their web site (and on other legit sites that mention them) using the BN99 6DA post code ............ ?

It won't do any harm but if the different postcodes apply to different depts at the same address then it could delay your letter getting to the correct dept.

I wouldn't assume that a different but similar postcode means that there is anything untoward with the letter.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

companies do try to find lost shareholders, BG are doing a search just now, and folks were just as confused when receiving letters.

Have a read of this recent thread.