Scammers don’t just come out at Christmas – their desire to deceive knows no bounds!
August 09, 2023
SCAMMER, chiseller, defrauder, gouger, grifter, swindler – these are all words for those people who just can’t bring themselves to do an honest days’ work but instead try to swindle people by means of deception or fraud.
Last week, the senior management team at Worldwide Financial Planning was made aware that an unauthorised firm, referring to themselves as “ISA Investment / isa-investment.info,” were contacting consumers and were using Worldwide Financial Planning’s details to legitimise themselves. In other words, they are saying they are linked to Worldwide Financial Planning just like they have said they are linked to many others. Of course, they aren’t, but these people work on numbers. For every thousand there might be one person who falls for it. This was a scam and consumers they were targeting, and possibly still are, will lose any money ‘invested’ with this scam firm.
These scammers are up to no good – no good which could cause serious loss for people who have worked hard all of their lives and have invested their money wisely using reputable and FCA regulated independent financial advisers, such as ourselves.
Scams can be very sophisticated and it’s so important for people to be aware. It was thanks to people who know our firm who were quick and sharp enough to recognise that the communication they received was in no way from our independent financial advisers, and thankfully, knew to contact us immediately to report this (having laid a little trap of their own with the scammer). This scamming firm is already known to the FCA, and the FCA have already given guidance that consumers should avoid dealing with this firm and be aware of that potential scam.
Scam firms may give incorrect contact details and that includes postal addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses – details which may change over time.
How were we alerted? Scammers may also give out details which belong to another business or individual, so the information looks genuine to an unsuspecting consumer. In this instance they used the name of one of our advisers. When the gentleman targeted responded by email asking the scammer for our FCA authorization number, he did receive an email with our actual FCA authorisation number which is freely available on the FCA site anyhow. The gentleman also then quizzed the scammer about why things were being transferred differently to the last occasion, and again, he received an explanation stating that the previous transfer for the activation of the account and the scammer went on to explain that ‘once it comes to investing since we are doing everything in crypto currencies transfer needs to be the same’.
The gentleman who alerted us also asked the scammer what the legal registered name of the company is and the email response was ‘Worldwide Financial Planning Ltd’.
The gentleman then asked how Worldwide Financial Planning was linked to ISA-Investments and the email response stated ‘mother company, ISA is crypto branch’ and he was told all would be explained the following day.
Thankfully, the kind gentleman targeted could see there was a lot wrong with this. We wouldn’t be dealing with crypto for a start and he contacted our administration team to make us aware. One of our administrators immediately contacted the senior management team who took action.
So, what does this mean for you? Well, if you deal with a company like that you wouldn’t be afforded the protection of either the Financial Ombudsman Service if you have a complaint or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if things go wrong. This means it’s unlikely you will get your money back if the firm goes out of business.
So, how do you protect yourself from scammers? You should only deal with financial firms which are authorised by the FCA. If a financial firm is authorised by the FCA, it gives you greater protection if things go wrong. You can always check the FCA register to make sure a firm is authorised and has permission for the service it’s offering you. On the FCA website, you will also find information on how you are protected and also the legitimate contact details for authorised firms. If you’re contacted unexpectedly by a financial business or individual, do make sure that you reply using only the contact details on the Financial Services Register.
We are so grateful that the gentleman who alerted us to the fact this firm was linking itself to Worldwide Financial Planning, was able to recognise this was not an authentic communication from us.
Our FCA regulated independent financial advisers have all been informed of this scam attempt and we have also reported it directly to the FCA.
Please take the above advice on board as it is so important that we do everything we can to protect our customers, but that you are protected via other products you have elsewhere. Although this is a sophisticated scam attempt, we are immensely proud that our advisers have their own unique relationships with you, our customers, but please always be cautious.
Here are some links which you may find useful.
The Financial Services Register - https://register.fca.org.uk/s/
FCA – How To Spot The Warning Signs - https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/protect-yourself-scams
FCA Contact Information - https://www.fca.org.uk/contact
