A promise of £80,000… and an inventive use of legal notices
Probes a world of scams and scandals
M.H. writes: Almost 15 years ago, I bought shares in Score One Inc through broker Pacific Continental. Thanks to help from you, I was successful in claiming from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Now I have received a call from an adviser in Boston in the US, who says the 479 shares I held have grown to 9,079 shares worth a total of $104,226 (about £80,000).
I was sent a stock redemption agreement and mandate. I signed them, and I was assigned an agent at the US Mergers & Acquisitions Department in Washington DC, who assured me everything was genuine. To date I have not been asked for any money up front. What is my position?
PACIFIC Continental was one of the most corrupt firms of stockbrokers ever to inhabit the City of London. I campaigned for years to get it shut down, and when it finally folded it cost the compensation scheme tens of millions of pounds that had to be paid out to people who had been tricked into buying highly risky shares.
The documents you sent show that you were contacted recently by Courington Law, a firm of lawyers in Boston, who put you in touch with what appeared to be a US government department.
At my request – and thank you for playing along with this – you kept up contact with Courington Law until the inevitable sting appeared. The law firm promised it would not ask for any payment before you got your money. Yet it told you that the share redemption deal was organised by a company in Singapore called Silver Pines Escrow. Sure enough, it wanted $5,710 (about £4,400) up front.
Now for a dose of reality. Enquiries in Boston show that there is no such local law firm as Courington Law. There is no such government agency as the US Mergers & Acquisitions Department. Also, the genuine watchdog, the Securities & Exchange Commission, revoked the registration of Score One Inc many years ago.
What all this amounts to is that the crooks behind ‘Courington Law’ have got hold of a list of Pacific Continental victims. You are not the only one who has been contacted with a tale of an unexpected fortune just around the corner. In fact, the crooks have been so active that our own Financial Conduct Authority says everyone should be ‘especially wary’ of dealing with them.
I have to say, though, that the bad guys have worked hard at their fraud. They have a smart website, though I did find that the picture of their staff is just a stock photograph posed by models. Perhaps the most inventive tactic used by the fraudsters came a few days ago. After you refused to stump up the cash they expected, they sent you a page from last Sunday’s Washington Post. There among the legal notices was an announcement naming you, and saying that if you did not follow up your claim at once, you would lose both the shares and the promised payment.
I checked. The page from the paper was genuine. Except, that is, for the legal notices. Some were genuine but were actually published months ago. Some, including the one naming you, were forged.
In short, there never was any £80,000. If you had sent your £4,400, it would have vanished.
The Financial Conduct Authority knows Courington Law’s address and telephone number, and if it wants details of the fake official in Washington then I can supply them. Is it too much to hope that our watchdog might speak to the SEC and get this international fraud halted?