Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Another Axa to grind over stolen £100,000
MY article last week about an 87-year-old who lost £70,000 to crooks posing as Insurance giant Axa is, tragically, not even the worst example of this fraud.
I’ve since heard from a woman who had her retirement savings of £100,000 stolen by an Axa clone.
The investor is an NHS worker in her 60s I’ll just identify as Joy.
She looked online for investment options and came across the website searchukbonds.com, pushed to the top of search results by Google Ads.
That was on December 1 last year, several days after the Financial Conduct Authority had been alerted to this website by consumer finance campaigner Mark Taber, but nine days before it was added to the watchdog’s list of scams with the words “be especially wary of dealing with this unauthorised firm”.
With no official warning to alert her, Joy gave her details to searchuk bonds and was contacted by callers claiming to be from Axa Investment Managers who were selling a one-year bond with 1.75% interest.
She wasn’t to know that Axa does not sell savings bonds.
The interest was temptingly above what’s on offer from high-street banks but low enough not to ring alarm bells.
Joy was also reassured by the process she had to go through before she could invest.
“I corresponded with several different people from different ‘departments’,” she said.
“Upon research, the names they provided are on Linkedin listed as Axa employees.
“All the paperwork they sent was extremely detailed, professional and sophisticated, which made it look completely genuine.”
She only realised that she’d transferred her money to a fraud gang when she never got log-in details for her account.
“These scammers have robbed me of my life savings, shattered my trust and destroyed my mental welfare,” she said.
“I feel totally
Last week, an OAP told how she lost £70k. Now I hear how clones took another £100k
violated that my money has been taken away from me and extremely let down by the lack of security and protection within the banking system.”
To avoid being easily identified, crooks like this gang arrange to get paid via third parties.
The victim I wrote about last week transferred her savings through London firm Central FX, which is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to carry out “payment service activities”.
Joy was also told to use an Fca-regulated firm, Alpha FX Ltd, which claims to provide “currency management solutions for some of the world’s most respected organisations.”
And some of the world’s most ruthless fraudsters too, it seems.
I asked Alpha FX chief executive Morgan
Tillbrook what due diligence his company carried out, including what anti-money laundering checks it made, but he has not replied.
Joy transferred the money to Alpha FX from her Halifax account and complained to the bank in January.
Nine weeks later she has still not heard if it would refund her – and then she saw my article last week and got in touch with me.
I advised her that she had a strong case under the “Contingent Reimbursement Model”, the banking code that states: “Any customer of a payment service provider which is signed up to the code can expect to be reimbursed where they were not to blame for the success of a scam.”
Given the sophistication of the scam, I had little doubt that Joy was not to blame – and now she is being refunded in full by Halifax.
“I am absolutely ecstatic,” she said. “I could not have done it without you, I hope an article about my case
will help other people.” Axa Investment Managers is aware of 25 victims who have lost money to scammers cloning its name.
“These investment scams have become very sophisticated and fraudsters are using both legitimate and illegitimate information,” said a spokesperson. “It’s difficult for consumers to tell fact from fiction.”
Halifax said it provided warnings to Joy before she made the transfers saying: “Helping keep our customers’ money safe is our priority and we have a great deal of sympathy for Joy as the victim of an investment scam.
“While she could have done more to check the opportunity was genuine, we have reviewed the particular circumstances of this case and arranged to refund the money she lost.”
I hope the FCA will now investigate the part played in clone frauds by payment services firms that it regulates.
‘‘ It’s difficult for consumers to tell fact from fiction