You Are On The List

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On March 19, 2010, in Sales Practice Abuses, Scams, Securities Industry (general), Serious Fraud Office, United Kingdom, United Kingdom, by IW Dog

Britain’s Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) has exposed a reality that few appreciate: scam artists know your name. According to a press release from the FSA: The Financial Services Authority (FSA) and City of London Police (CoLP) have contacted 1,000 people across the UK to warn them that their personal details are on a ‘master list’ being used by fraudsters to target and sell them worthless shares.

Britain’s Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) has exposed a reality that few appreciate: scam artists know your name. According to a press release from the FSA:

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) and City of London Police (CoLP) have contacted 1,000 people across the UK to warn them that their personal details are on a ‘master list’ being used by fraudsters to target and sell them worthless shares.

This list, the second share fraud master list obtained by the FSA and CoLP in 2010, contains the names and phone numbers of about 750 people, and the names and addresses of 250. The list was discovered by the FSA and CoLP as part of Operation WARN, which was launched in February.

Share fraudsters usually contact people by telephone and use high pressure sales tactics to con investors into buying non-tradable, overpriced or even non-existent shares. These share fraudsters, commonly know as ‘boiler rooms’, are unauthorised, overseas-based companies with bogus UK addresses and phone lines routed abroad.

You are on one or more lists like that.

Smart investors have saved their nest eggs by investigating unregistered investments through an SEC-trained investigators. Many of the rest have lost their nest eggs and are now starting over with nothing.