Be aware of scam financial letters, texts and emails

Friday 6 November, 2015

Recently one of our Lonsdale Wealth Management clients received the following scam letter.  Fraudsters are being increasingly creative in the way they contact individuals and offering financial advice.  Obvious things to look out for include:

• Financial schemes that appear too good to be true!
• Bad spelling, punctuation and poor grammar
• Letters encouraging you to provide personal financial information

Simon Hawker, Managing Director of Lonsdale Services said: ‘If you receive a letter that looks too good to be true, it may well be a scam.   If you have any concerns about any financial communication you receive, please contact your Lonsdale financial adviser.’

 

Hello X,

Firstly, I want to apologies for using this medium of communication rather than email, as it is intentional for the privacy of the transaction, simply the reason I instructed a colleague coming to the UK to locally post this letter to you on my behalf.

I am Mr. X, a Mutual Funds & Relationship Manager, with a Security & Assets management company here in Hong Kong.

On the 4th of March 2009, one of our HNWC (High Net Worth Clients) XYZ (in this case, not you, but same first and last name with you) residing then in Hong Kong, invested massively in one of our mutual funds schemes at a return interest rate of 6% PA. Without informing X , I negotiated an extra 5% interest on the principal sum and presented it autonomously to the treasury unit,which was approved by a confidant and colleague at the time.

XXX liquidated his investment fully last year , without any rollovers and closed his account completely with my company who have since completely discharged all obligations as agreed hence owe nothing directly to xxx  as far as concerned.

The extra 5% which was then negotiated by me was without the knowledge or consent of anyone else which I was able to facilitate by using my colleague in the treasury department, has now culminated to USO$ 8,945,000 (Eight Million, Nine Hundred & Forty Five Thousand United States Dollars) , and is currently in a segregated bonded floating account managed by our prime brokers, an offshore investment bank here in Hong Kong (will inform you of the bank, as we proceed). This was possible then, as I only took advantage of a glitch in the system that was mistakenly left open by government policies here.

Pursuit to a new company policy, which states and prohibits fixed equity to be liquidated and remitted to a third party, hence simply the main reason I have contacted you to work with me and act in this capacity. I have mapped and schemed out a perfect 18 days funds transmission from liquidation to the final processing of the funds release order to your account.

This is a normal and conventional practice amongst investment bankers in all financial districts of the world, including London, New York and Geneva. Some banks convert these excesses into fat bonuses, and split amongst themselves to give it a cover. So you have absolutely no worries as it is 100% guaranteed and risk free, as this is what we classify in banking parlance as an extra legal transaction, which must be guided discreetly and its details must remain kept between the parties involved in this case you and I only .

Please reach me on email: xxx or my direct telephone number xxxx so I can furnish you with more details and steps for us to follow to achieve success together.

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