FSCS Letter Scam

FSCS Letter Scam.

In recent weeks scammers have been sending out scam letters to victims of investment frauds pretending to be from the FSCS. The genuine FSCS is the UK body responsible for paying compensation to those who have been wronged and lost money due to negligence or wrongdoing by companies regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FSCS stands for ‘Financial Services Compensation Scheme’.

We have been contacted by several people who have received the scam letter. We have attached a link to one of the letters below at the end of this article (with the intended victim’s details redacted to protect his/her identity). You will see that this letter was targeting victims of the Essex and London Properties Ltd fraud. We have covered that fraud in a series of articles since the very beginning. This culminated in several people being convicted in the UK courts and sent to prison. HERE IS A LINK TO ONE OF OUR ARTICLES ON ESSEX AND LONDON PROPERTIES LTD.

The FSCS Letter Scam is quite sophisticated. It has clearly been put together by an organised criminal group which has some knowledge of company insolvency and the FSCS itself. To be clear to readers of this article, IF YOU RECEIVE THIS FSCS LETTER OR SOMETHING SIMILAR IT IS A SCAM. YOU MUST NOT PROVIDE ANY PERSONAL DETAILS OR PAY OVER ANY MONEY. REPORT THE MATTER TO ACTION FRAUD. HERE IS A LINK TO THE ACTION FRAUD REPORTING PAGE.

The FSCS Letter Scam is designed to give victims very little time to think about their actions. The letter informs them that if they don’t act very quickly they will lose the right to a payment. A lot of people are likely to fall for this scam because the documents are professional, the FSCS logo is a copy of the genuine logo on the FSCS website, the address is correct for the FSCS and the letter has the signature of a genuine FSCS official (the scammers have researched the names of people employed by the FSCS and have forged a signature of a genuine officer). For avoidance of doubt, their claim of there being a pot of money available to victims is false. THERE IS NO MONEY SITTING IN A BANK ACCOUNT WAITING TO BE DISBURSED. IT IS A SCAM.

The letter does not ask victims to make any payment (at least not at this stage), but every scam is designed to make money for the scammers. Therefore, it is fair to assume that once an intended victim makes contact they will be asked to pay a ‘Release Fee’ or an ‘Escrow Fee’ or be given some other excuse why the intended victim needs to pay them some money.

As part of the scam process they may ask their intended victims to provide them with a copy of their passport and proof of address. DO NOT DO THIS. Those details can be used to open a bank account in the person’s name, which the scammers will control, and which will then be used to take in money from this scam and from a number of other scams. That bank account will have become a money mule account. It will be closely monitored by the scammers who will ensure that as soon as a victim pays money into the account it is immediately transferred out to an offshore bank account beyond the reach of law enforcement.

LINK TO THE FSCS LETTER – FSCS Fake Documents_REDACTED

FSCS Letter Scam.