Another Fake Insolvency Service Scam

Another Fake Insolvency Service Scam.

We have received details of another fake insolvency service scam. This has been sent to us by a man who was unfortunately the victim of the Texmoore scam which we covered in an article in December 2020 and which can be viewed here on THIS LINK.

There was a UK Police investigation into Texmoore. We know because we were contacted by the Investigating Officer. Unfortunately, it was being handled by a provincial constabulary which had picked up the case because one of the victims lived in their jurisdiction. Very few provincial police authorities have the experience or budget to investigate widespread frauds in the UK. These kinds of frauds are better handled by bigger constabularies with experience of complex frauds such as City Of London Police, Essex Police and others. We got the impression that the Investigating Officer didn’t really understand what had taken place and that the people higher up didn’t want to allocate its budget to investigate a fraud of this size.

This fake Insolvency Service scam is similar to many others. Fake Insolvency Service scams are now becoming very common as are fake HMRC scams and fake Police scams. We reported on an attempt to trick us with a fake Serious Fraud Office scam only last week. Here is a link to that article. In our case they were not after money. The scam was designed to gather information on SOS by a man who we have been exposing as a crook in recent articles. We’re not stupid enough to fall for that.

Another Fake Insolvency Service Scam.

We have copied below the email which has been sent out to Texmoore / Fabcourt Developments / Sentor investors. There are some important points worthy of note. They are:

1. This is not just a blind email from someone with no knowledge of the investment. The person who sent this has a very good understanding of the scam investment which suggests to us that this person was involved in the original scam.
2. This person has a reasonable command of the English language which suggests that he/she is a first language English speaker. This email is likely to have been written by a British person.
3. This person has a basic understanding of the insolvency process, although not a detailed one.
4. This person is trying too hard to make the email sound official, but is using language which the Insolvency Service would never use.
5. There is no “Security Trustee” in a liquidation process. That simply doesn’t exist.
6. The purpose of this email is to get investors to engage with them. The Insolvency Service will already know the names and details of the investors who are creditors. It does not need investors to complete another Proof Of Debt form. The email is designed to trick investors into providing a Proof Of Debt form to the scammer who will then ultimately inform the investor that their investment has been recovered and there is just the small matter of the investor paying a release fee which will enable their investment to be repaid to them.
7. Always remember that scammers are getting more and more sophisticated and believable. They will research genuine employees and will that person’s name in their correspondence. They will use the correct address and the correct phone number just in case their target decides to do a quick check online. Most people will discover that the name, address and telephone number are correct and will believe the email is genuine. Our advice is NEVER use a link provided to you in an email. If you click on that link you may well be taken to a fake Insolvency Service website. Always open a new tab in your browser and do your own search. Always contact the Insolvency Service, HMRC or Police force through your own search and ask them if the email is likely to be genuine. We guarantee you will be told it is not genuine no matter how professional it looks.

Finally, another tip is to check when the domain name was registered. In this case you can see that the domain name for this email is “theinsolvency.co.uk”.  The email was received by the investor on 4^th October 2023. A check on the domain name reveals that it was registered only 9 days before on 25^th September 2023. Scammers plan their broadcasts in advance and have everything ready to go. They then register the domain name at the last minute.

From: The Insolvency Service <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Oct 4, 2023
Subject: LIQUIDATION UPDATE: Sentor Group and Texmoore
To: <XXXXXXXXXXX

[NAME],

We are writing to you following the conclusion of our independent investigation into the Sentor group of companies, including but not limited: to Fabcourt Developments Limited, Sentor Solutions Commercial LTD and Texmoore Commercial Limited.

As you are aware, and as announced in our update during October 2022 the aforementioned companies were issued with a court order to cease and desist trading due the uncovering of the fraudulent investment scheme which promised fixed rate investment products known as ‘convertible loan notes’ with high monthly or quarterly interest rates for a duration of 2-3 years. Despite the phenomenal scale of their operation which saw over £2million defrauded from the retail public – our efforts to recover creditors’ funds via a rudimentary liquidation process proved fruitless.

Direct communication over the past year with The Official Receiver has revealed to us that there are no solvent assets belonging to the Sentor group which could be liquidated and used to relieve creditors, which goes a long way to explaining why creditors are still yet to receive any funds from the liquidation process. Granted this is not satisfactory and consequently we have been under increased pressure from the Security Trustee of the liquidation process and of course from individual creditors to provide a concrete and viable solution that would see substantial funds being issued to themselves.

As such we launched an independent investigation into the Sentor group, largely centered around the movement of capital between the respective companies, this led us to the discovery that a significant portion of the capital onboarded from creditors throughout the years were siphoned off and embezzled into several subsidiary accounts which weren’t part of the Sentor group, however were nonetheless owned by the same individuals who were within the directorship of the Sentor group companies. It is with delight to report that after a year of painstaking, extensive and arduous investigation we have been able to seize a subsidiary account that houses in the region of £1.2million, a significant coup for the second phase of this liquidation process.

As these funds are held in a subsidiary account, which in legal terms is not a company directly within the Sentor group, we have had to solicit the advice from the High Courts as to how to successfully distribute these funds. They have ruled that this capital technically cannot be subjected to the full liquidation process and instead a creditor proof of debt form will have to be submitted via ourselves on behalf of each creditor to determine their eligibility to claim funds from this process.

Upon determining eligibility we will then be in a position to discuss the next steps with each creditor relative to receiving their funds.

We are therefore urging creditors to contact us urgently upon receipt of this correspondence, as if determined eligible, we will be granting the ability to redeem your principal investment values back from this settlement process.

Regards,

Mr. Christopher Pleass

Finance and Commercial Director

The Insolvency Service

0800 098 2728

Address: 16th Floor, 1 Westfield Ave, London E20 1HZ

Telephone Number: 0800 098 2728

Disclaimer

The information contained in this message may be confidential and is intended for the addressee only. Any unauthorised use, dissemination of the information or copying of this message is prohibited. If you are not the addressee, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete this message. Although this e-mail and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect which might affect any computer or system into which they are received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that they are virus free and no responsibility is accepted by The Insolvency Service for any loss or damage from receipt or use thereof. The information contained herein is not to be relied upon as a basis of any contract or commitment.

Don’t be taken in by anything you receive from the Insolvency Service, FCA or Police. Always check it out yourself before sending any information. None of these organisations will ever ask you to pay any money.

Another Fake Insolvency Service Scam.