Warning over fake comparison sites as fraudsters steal £10m since lockdown

There has been a fourfold increase in savers being defrauded after using fake comparison websites to buy bonds and other investments, analysis has found.

The scam, which took off during the first lockdown and has since gathered pace, sees fraudsters promote fake price comparison websites through sponsored Google and Facebook links. Nearly £ 10m was lost to the fraud between March and October alone.

Scammers then use contact details collected to send fake leaflets to investors or direct them to fake websites, where they are then defrauded.

In one case, a fake prospectus, supposedly from investment group Axa, was sent to investors. It was almost indistinguishable from a genuine communication at first glance. According to Axa, the leaflet was sent to visitors of the fake website “Top Wealth Bonds”, which has since been taken down.

After entering their contact details into the site, savers were sent emails containing the leaflets from the fake email address enquiry@ private-axa. com. Axa said that at least 12 other fund houses had been imitated in similar scams.

As the sites used do not always imitate wellknown brand names, it is more difficult for them to be removed, meaning that they remain on the internet for longer, the firm added.

The most recently available data from trade body the Investment Association showed that between July and October last year, the number of reported scams of this type nearly quadrupled, from around 300 to 1,175.

In many cases, investors only realised they had been defrauded after they failed to receive their expected quarterly interest payments and approached the genuine firm directly, causing a lag between the fraud taking place and it being reported. The estimated total reported loss to savers from these scams more than doubled from around £4m between March and July to £9.4m by October, according to the IA. A spokesman for Axa Investment Managers said: “There is a genuine belief among some of those affected by these scams that they have performed sufficient due diligence. “However, these scams have become very sophisticated and fraudsters are using both legitimate and illegitimate information. It’s difficult for consumers to tell fact from fiction.”