The AMF warns savers: scammers pretending to be agents of the stock market policeman claim to help victims of scams recover lost sums. And they are awesome…
Canvassing since 06 and 07 and canvassing for the CPF may have been banned, but the French are not immune to this! Scammers are constantly finding new techniques to trick their victims and extort money from them. And what better than to have them online to manipulate them into giving them the keys to their bank account in complete confidence? The Financial Markets Authority (AMF), which oversees the protection of savings invested in financial instruments, investor information and the proper functioning of financial instrument markets, alert on an active campaign of fraudulent calls of people pretending to be investigators of the financial institution who offer victims of crypto-asset investment scams to recover their funds – in the end, they get scammed twice.
AMF scam: the telephone spoofing technique to steal an identity
It is more than fifty savers who have already been victims of an investment scam in the past who reported to the AMF that they had been called by a person who claimed to be able to help them to be compensated or to recover the money they had lost. The people targeted were then called by another person posing as an engineer to assist them in recovering their crypto-assets. “directly on the Blockchain”. Since the number seemed to be the switchboard’s, they weren’t suspicious.
However, a known number that is displayed is not a guarantee of security. Indeed, telephone spoofing makes it possible to falsify a telephone number – which is actually not very complicated – in order to usurp the identity of a person who is a member of public authorities or institutions. This is a technique frequently used by scammers posing as bank advisers in order to extort money from victims. This recovery scam practice is a “scam on scam “, as the AMF explains. A process that is increasingly used in several European countries over the past three years and which is beginning to affect France at the start of 2023. In addition to phone calls with a legitimate number, it can take several forms: fake e-mails or fake websites whose domain name is close to a letter near, fake letters with fake logos or stamps, usurpation of the name of real agents, etc. The AMF has received a total of more than fifty reports and will initiate “actions likely to put an end to and sanction these acts“.
The Autorité des marchés financiers reminds you that, even if you have been the victim of a scam in the past, it will never call you to try to recover the lost funds or to offer you compensation, even if you have filed a complaint. , because it does not have the legal competence. In the event of a scam, only the courts are empowered to intervene. The AMF only intervenes in the event of a dispute between an investor and their financial intermediary in order to try to find an amicable agreement, via its free Mediation service. In any case, it never deals with fraud cases. Also, if you ever receive a call that seems to you to be fraudulent, you must not respond to the requests and must report it to the AMF’s public relations center, AFM Épargne Info Service, via a form on its website. In any case, always verify the information that you receive from people you do not know, because usurpations are frequent, numerous and easy to carry out. Do not communicate your personal details (telephone, email, identity documents, RIB, IBAN, proof of address, etc.) to sites whose reliability you cannot certify or to people whose identity you have not been able to verify. And, if in doubt, contact AMF Épargne Info Service: prevention is better than cure!