Fraudsters are using the details of York-based IFA firm G & E Wealth Management Ltd in an attempt to extract money from would-be investors using aggressive cold-calling sales tactics, the Financial Conduct Authority has warned.
According to a notice published on the regulator’s website last week, a ‘boiler room’ scam calling itself GE Wealth Management is operating out of Canary Wharf in London and from a website www.ge-management.com.
The genuine firm, G & E Wealth Management Limited, is based in York and uses www.ge-wm.co.uk.
The regulator told FTAdviser sister title Money Management last month that reports of ‘cloning’ scams have been on the rise.
Data provided by the FCA showed October was the worst month of the year for both reports of cloned companies and the number of companies reports related to. After starting the year at 22 in January, the number of reports rose to 33 in October, more than double that of September’s 15.
International advisory firm deVere Group has previously warned that it is being targeted by fraudsters using both the firm’s name and the names of individuals employed by the firm to target investors.
In the past two weeks the FCA has issued a warning over a ‘clone’ of deVere’s UK arm calling itself deVere Group UK which is operating out of an office in Holborn, London and could be a ‘boiler room’ scam.
One contact detail the fake firm is using is email address JonathanHarley.deVere-Group@london.com; the real deVere UK employs a Jonathan Harley as a paraplanner.
deVere itself has stated that it is aware of another specific clone company using the same name as the Holborn fake and trading out of Swindon, Wiltshire, which is similarly cold-calling customers and directing them to the authentic website.
Elsewhere last week the regulator warned against a scam using what appears to be the combined names of fund groups Jupiter and JP Morgan to target UK investors.
According to a notice published on the regulator’s website last week, a firm calling itself Jupiter P Morgan has been providing services in the UK without FCA authorisation.
A security alert on Jupiter’s genuine website says Jupiter P Morgan created a fake website as part of a carbon credit and emissions reduction scam.
Other clone firms warned against last week include:
• KSI, aka Karamanof, operating out of Hong Kong and London, a clone of EEA authorised Athens-based Karamanof Securities and Investment Services; and
• First Trade Europe, a boiler room operating out of Cambridge and Hong Kong, a clone of previously-EEA authorised Berlin-based First Trade Europe GmbH.
Other unauthorised firms included in the latest batch of FCA warnings are:
• Westberg Equity Research Corp, aka WERC (New York and London)
• Firkin Asset Consultants (Japan); and
• Emmett Ashford Group.
Investors who do business with unauthorised firms will not have recourse to the Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme should things go awry.
