Investors who have fallen victim to the London Capital & Finance (LCF) mini-bond mis-selling scandal are now being approached by scammers.
Many have a claim regarding LCF with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
They are now being contacted through various channels, including social media, to discuss any compensation they might be entitled to.
The FSCS said: “Such messages are being sent through various online and mobile platforms and targeted at consumers who might have a claim regarding LCF.
“Do not respond to such messages nor engage in any way with the source.
“[The] FSCS is aware of these scams and reports them to the appropriate agencies”. In particular, beware of such messages:
- via WhatsApp, Messenger, or posted on Facebook;
- linking to unfamiliar websites;
- phone calls from strangers or friend requests from unusual profiles; and,
- purporting to be from FSCS.
Taking action
LCF mis-sold around £237m ($306.5m, €280.8m) worth of mini-bonds to over 11,600 investors.
Last month, the lifeboat scheme said that, for the time being, it will only compensate 1% of investors (159) by the end of February 2020.
In December 2019, International Adviser reported that the Financial Conduct Authority was in talks with Google regarding the fraudulent advertisement of bonds and similar investment products promising unrealistic returns.
But not much has been achieved between the two yet.
This prompted the victims to bypass the regulators and go straight to the UK government for action, asking the chancellor and HM Treasury t reform the laws on liability for publishing ads online.
