Fraud and Scam Claims

Common Examples

Investment scams

This can occur when an individual is persuaded to invest in an ‘investment opportunity’ such as purchasing shares or commodities. Often the investment isn’t real or the victim is encouraged to purchase a commodity at a price that exceeds the real value. Once the scammers have received payment, they cease contact with the individual who ultimately loses access to the funds.

The scams are usually difficult to spot. Many investment scams require the victim to use cryptocurrency – a digital asset that can be traded online.

Impersonation scams

This occurs when a scammer reaches out to an individual pretending to be a legitimate organisation. They could be posing as the police, a bank, a government department like HMRC, or even a utility company. Scammers may also pose as someone familiar to the victim such as a family member, friend or Instagram follower. The impersonators will try to persuade an individual  to send  money to them through various methods.  More commonly, the scammer will make up a convincing story to elicit funds, examples include pretending to be a child contacting their parent for help with rental payments or to borrow money for bills.

Employment scams

A scammer could also pose as a company or recruitment agent. Some may even impersonate legitimate companies and recruitment agencies making the difficult to spot. Scammers will offer an individual a job role that sounds appealing, usually high pay or the prospect of receiving significant bonuses with minimal work required. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true – it probably is!

Scammers will often ask for payment prior to the individual commencing the role or will require payment into their platform on the promise that income will follow.  Often scammers will assure you that the money can be withdrawn through making further deposits, and this is often done through cryptocurrency, which is harder to trace and recover. More often than not, victims end up losing all of the money they have put into the sham employment and receive no income.

Purchase scams

This can happen where a scammer sells fake products at discounted prices to attract customers. Once the payment is made, the customer does not receive the goods. Scammers usually perform the scam on social media or websites. Scammers can also clone genuine websites or use paid advertising to lure customers to a fake website.

Romance scams

Individuals fall victim to romance scams when meeting a partner online. A scammer will communicate with an individual using a fake profile and an alias to commence a friendship or relationship, creating a feeling of trust for the victim before eliciting funds.  They may claim they need money for emergency medical care, or to cover transport costs to visit the victim overseas. Often the individual being scammed doesn’t realise until it is too late and ends up losing any funds transferred after the scammer disappears.

Scam messages

Scammers use information about individuals that is available to them online. This information can be used to  phishing messages and emails more convincing. ‘Phishing’ is when scammers use emails to trick their victims. The aim is often to make an individual visit a website, that will transfer a virus onto the individual’s devices, or steal bank details or other personal information.

Invoice scams

Also known as a mandate fraud, an individual may fall victim to an invoice scam when receiving an email/invoice to pay a company/person they are already dealing with, such as a solicitor’s firm or traders. The email can be intercepted by a scammer who will change the bank account details in the email to a bank account they have access to. They will then pressure the individual to make payment. These scams can be really sophisticated and often take the form of an existing email thread the legitimate company has been communicating on.

Bereavement scams

Scammers also use the death of a relative to try and trick individuals intro transferring funds.  They may use this as an opportunity to ‘reconnect’ with a bereaved family, often claiming the decease owed them money.

Our Criteria

Banks have a duty to protect customers from APP scams. If you are a victim of an APP scam and meet the below criteria, our Civil Litigation team are here to help recover funds for you.

• Have you suffered a loss of £5,000 or more?
• Was the APP scam made by transferring funds from a UK bank account?

Funding options

At MSB we can offer various methods of funding including Conditional Fee Agreements (CFA). This means we can work on a no win no fee basis and we will not require a payment on account before beginning work*. We will only take payment of an agreed percentage from the total amount we are able to recover for you. You will not need to pay us if your claim is unsuccessful.

*All clients will be required to pay a mandatory fee of £9.60 so that we may undertake the relevant identification checks required by law.

Why MSB?

Our commercial litigation team provides sector-leading services and advice, guiding our clients through the best solutions for them. We develop life-long relationships built on mutual trust, respect and results.

We pride ourselves on our partner-led approach, which ensures a quality, proactive and cost-effective service to our wide-ranging base of commercial and business clients.

Given our well-established, experienced and growing commercial team, you can be confident that we offer all the resource and expert know-how required to reach the right resolution for you and your business.