My interview on BBC Radio 5 Live warning against clone firms scam

12 May

Following deVere Group’s public championing of the Financial Conduct Authority’s  (FCA) warning against clone firms last week, today I was invited onto BBC Radio 5 Live’s flagship ‘5 Live investigates’ programme to discuss the matter.

I was one of a number of guests, including Action Fraud which investigates this form of crime in the UK, on the show which brought into sharp focus how these clone scams work and the dangers they present to unsuspecting potential clientswho could be duped into handing over huge sums of their life savings into fraudulent investment schemes and, of course, the damage they can do to wholly legitimate companies, such as deVere, which bring the real, tangible benefits of financial planning to tens of thousands of people around the world.

The presenter, Adrian Goldberg, asked me various questions about how we found out that a firm had been set-up to deliberately imply it was part of our highly successful UK brand, how the fraudsters have been trying to take deVere’s identity, and what assistance the authorities have given on this matter.

I told him: “We had clients phoning us who had suspected something was wrong.

“[The fraudsters] copied the website, the logo had been copied as well, business cards were almost identical, email addresses…

“We’ve reported everything [to the authorities].  The regulators are very goodand they do what they can, as do the police, but unfortunately there isn’t enough staff to react and deal with this as I think they need to.”

To my mind, the more we shed light on this problem, the better – and the more the industry, the police and the regulator work together to combat it, the quicker it will be a thing of the past.  And as such, I would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to the team at BBC Radio 5 Live for bringing the disturbing issue of clone firms to the attention of their huge national and international listenership.

Nigel Green deVere Group

Blog written 12th May

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