Grandma defrauded of shares? What can I do?

packeted

Hey folks,

My late grandfather was an accountant and held quite a few shares in the 80s and 90s, although I was always told that they were never worth that much.

Sadly he had a slow decline and passed away a few years ago. My grandmother has since been in charge and is very much with it although doesn't know much about the world of finance.

I recently visited her and she said she had received a letter from Broadway New York. She showed me the papers and it turns out she was cold called a couple of years ago from a firm called "Wheeler Consultancy Limited" regarding shares they knew she held (100 in Blacks Leisure). It appears they offered her money and she ended up faxing them a form essentially signing the shares over in return for money which I assume she never received. She also mailed the share certificate and form to their impressive looking address which turned out to be the address for Cinderella on Broadway NYC who returned the letter quite confused.

Given that no one else in the family is that big on finance I'm wondering what I should do. She seems to have lost all of the other share certificates and I have no idea what happened to these shares that seem to have been signed over - perhaps they are long gone. Possibly she has signed over the rest of the shares to some fraudsters.

Any advice on how I should proceed and help her? Is there any recourse for the above kind of fraud? Is a service like the Unclaimed Assets Register (https://www.uar.co.uk) worth trying? Any other services to try to help her identify what is left and consolidate it/cash it in before it's too late?

Cheers,
Francis

Linton

Very odd - Blacks Leisure went bust in 2012 and was taken over by JD Sports. It looks like the shares were worth nothing. 100 shares would never have been worth much anyway. Did she sign over other shares?

packeted

Hi Linton,

Honestly not sure, although she claims not. You're right, these were 100 shares back in 1997, so not sure if there were any stock splits etc.. but definitely news articles from 2012 saying that Blacks' shareholders wouldn't see anything out of the acquisition by JD Sports.

Cheers,
Francis

jimjames

I'd say it was more likely that she was the victim of advance fee fraud. She would have been asked to send money to the "broker" to pay for processing the claim. Once they get the money you hear no more from them.

Unfortunately other than reporting there probably isn't a lot you can do if they're outside UK. Worth checking exactly what holdings she has though.

Malthusian

It was an advance fee fraud. They would have told her that there were assets still in existence in respect of she was owed money, only she would have to pay £X,000 for an "indemnity" or similar nonsense, until she twigged what was going on. Needless to say she wouldn't have received a penny. See here for others who were contacted.

Your grandmother lost nothing in terms of the shares but double-check with her to make sure that she never sent these people any money. If she was scammed you should consider getting her a call-blocker or taking other measures to ensure she doesn't get scammed again. Because she is on a suckers list, and will be getting other such calls in the future.

Is there recourse - well, you can ring the police.