What is an investment scam?

Investment scams are fake but extremely appealing, highly convincing and tempting investment opportunities. Scammers will impersonate real people from genuine financial services firms over the telephone, email, online or post with the fraudsters doing as much as they can to get you to invest, fast.

The coronavirus outbreak and the cost-of-living crisis has affected all kinds of people in many ways and this vulnerability has also led to an increase in scams. Unscrupulous people then try to take advantage of the situation and convince you to part with money or investments.

Help to stay safe from scams

Scams are often smart, sophisticated and hard to spot so we’ve created this page to help you protect yourself from fraud.

• Your financial information and secure login details are valuable, so don’t share them with anyone – even if they’re claiming to be us. We will never ask you to tell us these.
• Choose passwords you can remember easily instead of writing them down.
• Scams usually start with someone getting in touch out of the blue. An email, a telephone call or text message you weren’t expecting can be convincing, but stay wary and hang up or don’t reply. If you are at all concerned you should contact us immediately. Slater Investments will never call you out of the blue offering you investment opportunities.
• Don’t click links or open emails unless you’re confident the email is really from a sender you know.
• If it sounds too good to be true, it very likely is. Stay sceptical.
• Scammers often try to put pressure on you to make a quick decision. Always take your time to check things out before going ahead.
• We will never ask you to move money to a ‘safe’ account or to switch SIPP providers, so if someone contacts you asking you to do this, it’s a scam.
• Scammers take advantage of current events to steal, so check a trusted source, like the MoneyHelper (https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk) regularly to stay a step ahead of the latest scams.
• Scammers will use very convincing fake brochures, fake news, fake websites and transcripts and can appear convincing. Always take your time to check the website address or whether the brochures look similar to anything you have received from us previously. 
• Scammers will use real names of people employed by Slater Investments and try to prove it to you by directing you to the FCA Register. If that happens, please hang up and call our office telephone number on 020 7220 9460.

The types of scams people might try:

Investment scams usually involve someone unexpectedly calling and inviting you to invest quickly in a scheme with very attractive returns and low risk. Remember, it’s easy enough to produce authentic looking paperwork and add pressure by making it a ‘limited time offer’ but don’t be rushed into a quick decision – always take the time to make proper checks before investing your money.

Pension scams usually follow the same approach as investment scams – contact out of the blue for an offer that’s too good to be true. It usually involves promising to help you ‘unlock’ your pension by transferring money to a different pension scheme. Retirees and people nearing retirement are targeted because they’re able to access large sums of money.

Scammers share lists of previous victims to commit recovery fraud. They contact people on these lists with the promise of the recovery of lost investments.

What to do:

As well as following all the tips at the top of the page:

• Check the contact details of anyone who gets in touch by contacting us directly to make sure you’re dealing with the genuine firm; and
• Do not give out any of your personal, investment or pension details.

You can check the FCA’s Register to see if you’re dealing with a regulated business. If they’re not regulated, you can report them to the FCA. If they keep contacting you when you’ve asked them to stop, just block their email address and phone number.

How to contact us

If you have received what you think is a suspicious email or telephone call from someone posing as a representative from Slater Investments, please stop, think and review and contact us immediately to confirm whether the contact was from us either by telephoning us on:  020 7220 9460 or send an email to operations@slaterinvestments.com. 

Do you need extra help?

If you would like this page in another format (for example audio, large print, braille) please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ above).

Useful links:

Government website: https://www.gov.uk/report-suspicious-emails-websites-phishing

FCA specialist webpage: https://www.fca.org.uk/scamsmart

Help if you’ve been scammed:

If the worst has happened and you’ve been scammed you can contact Action Fraud police for advice or to make a report by calling 0300 123 2040 or visiting their website www.actionfraud.police.uk

or by calling the police directly by dialling 101.