Easy Money Makers

What is a Boiler Room? Boiler Rooms are businesses that use high-pressure sales techniques to sell ‘sure thing’ investments with the promise of massive returns. In fact, what they’re selling is worthless stock in often unquoted companies that are either overvalued, or simply don’t exist at all.

How they work

Boiler Room operatives generally cold-call their targets, using phone numbers from publicly available shareholder lists. Because it’s against the law for investors to cold-call in the UK, they tend to be based abroad (often Spain, Switzerland, or the US) where they’re beyond the jurisdiction of the Financial Services Authority (FSA). They can approach anyone, anywhere.

Boiler Room techniques

A Boiler Room can look and sound legitimate. They may mention companies you’ve heard of, give themselves a UK address or phone number, and have a professional looking website. They’re notoriously persistent, and can hound a victim for months in the hope of a sale, catching out even seasoned investors. According to the FSA, Boiler Room Scam victims lose on average £20,000.

Remember, as a general rule, if an opportunity sounds too good to be true, then it almost certainly is.

What to do if you’re called

If you think you’re being targeted by a Boiler Room, the FSA’s advice is not to worry about being polite, just hang up. You should then dial the FSA contact centre on 0845 606 1234 with as much detail as you can remember. You’ll find more information about Boiler Rooms on the FSA website

www.fsa.gov.uk

Beware. Latest scammers hit ebay users. First you receive an email asking if your still selling an item, or they wish to buy the item, or they are having a problem paying for an item. They provide a link in the email to your suposed 'Item for Sale'. DONT go any further. Here's the clever bit that caught us out. You click on the link and you arrive at what looks like the usual login page with your ebay user name already in the correct space, so all you need to do is enter your password... Yep you guessed it, your not on the ebay site just a clone and they have just captured your password. When you then press enter you go to an item (could be anything) that your obviously not selling.. so you thin, oh someone has got me mixed up. At this point, the deed has been done, your password has been captured and a day or so later, your account will be manipulated. If you use the same password for your paypal account.. then you could be in big trouble. They could be buying through your paypal account.. Very dangerous. So beware of the inocent ebay spam email, which is a wolf in sheeps clothing. If an ebay buyer wants to get in touch with you, it will be through your ebay messages. Take care Have you been caught out? If so let everyone know on our blog.