It is urging investors to check the advice on its Scamsmart website, including taking a look at the Warning List before making any investment decisions. The FCA is launching its latest ScamSmart campaign aimed at raising awareness of increasingly sophisticated investment scam tactics. Read more: FCA creates 80 new roles to crack down on rogue firms "It’s incredibly difficult to get money back once lost in this way, but there are ways to protect yourself: don’t share your screen with anyone, as legitimate firms will not ask you to do this and check out our Scamsmart website for advice on how to avoid being scammed.” It can affect any investor, no matter how experienced. “That means access to your sensitive banking and investment information, the freedom to browse at their leisure, and the ability to take whatever details they want. Once scammers gain to your screen, they have complete control. Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “Investment scams can happen over many months, but sharing your screen without making the proper checks can change everything in an instant. While 88% said they would check if their investments were offered or sold by FCA firms, only 10% of these people would still trust their gut instinct with an investment opportunity from someone they didn’t know without making proper checks, like ensuring the firm or the financial promotion is properly authorised. Just 51% of would-be investors would check if a company appears on its “warning list” when deciding if an investment opportunity is legitimate in an FCA survey of 2,000 people.Īlthough older respondents admitted needing more help with technology, younger investors are not immune - a quarter (26%) of those aged 18 to 34 would agree to screen sharing their online banking or investment portal with someone they had not met. Read more: FCA flags weak crime checks at challenger banks Her case is among thousands the FCA has received to its consumer helpline. She lost more than £48,000 while scammers accessed her banking details, her pension and applied for loans on her behalf. Offering to complete the first investment for her, they asked her to download the AnyDesk platform, which then gave the scammers open access to all the financial details on her computer. This tactic is becoming more common, with the FCA registering an 86% increase in cases in one year, at 2,014 cases.ĥ9-year-old Angela Underhill clicked on an advertisement for bitcoin and received a call from individuals claiming to be financial advisers. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said more than £25m was lost to such scams between 1 January 2021 and 31 March 2022, with victims ranging in age from 18 to over 70.ĭata from the watchdog shows nearly half (47%) of investors would fail to identify a screen sharing scam. The story of a woman who lost £48,000 as scammers used screen sharing software to fool her is one of thousands of cases that has prompted watchdog FCA to launch a campaign to tackle the scam. Screen sharing scam cases have surged, with one victim losing more than £48,000, the City regulator has warned.
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