A weird phone call about shares

Nardy

About an hour ago, I got a phone call asking to speak to me about my Centrica shares. I didn't quite catch the full name of the caller. In a loud and clear voice I said "who are you?", then the line went dead.

The thing is they knew my name and I do own Centrica shares, held in my Interactive Investor account.

Does anyone know what is going on here?

wmb194

Nardy said:

About an hour ago, I got a phone call asking to speak to me about my Centrica shares. I didn't quite catch the full name of the caller. In a loud and clear voice I said "who are you?", then the line went dead.

The thing is they knew my name and I do own Centrica shares, held in my Interactive Investor account.

Does anyone know what is going on here?

Usually they're scam calls offering to buy your shares at above market value due to a super secret stake building exercise by someone they're working for and then IIRC there's an advance fee fraud.  

They would pick up your name from the or an old share register. Did you originally own them in certificated form?

Nardy

Thanks.

They stem from end of year bonuses and share save schemes from my time in the gas industry over 30 years ago and I did have some certificates.

I had a similar call about a year or so ago about some Barclays.shares. I received those after Barclays took over the Woolwhich BS in the 90s.

naedanger

I had a very similar phone call a few years ago. In my case I am fairly sure it was a boiler room scam. 

If you hold (or held) shares in certificated form then you name and holding is (or was) on a public register that can be accessed by anyone. 

In my case the caller pretended to be from an agency, supposedly acting on behalf of the company whose shares I held, to establish how happy shareholders were with the company's performance. However it became clear that the caller was hoping I wasn't happy and was trying to angle the conversation round to discuss other investments.