Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
S.A. writes: I think some scammers are operating off the back of Beside Asset Management Limited, which you have written about before.
I warned last year that Beside Asset Management (BAM) accepted investors’ cash, claimed to make big profits, but then demanded thousands of pounds up front before it would allow withdrawals.
The profits were fictional, and the company vanished with the loot. Now Data Financial Services (DFS) claims to be riding to the rescue.
Thank you for sending me its letter offering to help clients redeem their full portfolio value, including profits. The letter is from DFS director Basil Scruby, and he invites you to contact him on 0207 315 4094. This Central London phone number makes sense, as DFS says its address is 239 Kensington High Street, a short walk from the offices of The Mail on Sunday.
John Cleese’s iconic character Basil Fawlty (pictured). Tony investigates a fraud where another Basil, this time Basil Scruby, was impersonated by fraudsters
Now for the truth. There is no trace of DFS at the address it uses. And while there is a genuine company called Data Financial Services Limited, it is in Oxfordshire, not London. Its equally genuine director is Basil Scruby, a perfectly respectable businessman.
He told me: ‘Data Financial Services is a privately owned company that holds some of my earnings. It has property, and has never offered financial services.’
And he added one fact the fraudsters would not have known: ‘My name is Basil, just like Basil Fawlty, but I am never called Basil. I am known as Tom, and that is how I always sign my name, never Basil.’
He first heard about the scam last month, when he received a three-page letter from the Financial Conduct Authority, quoting law after law, all written on the basis that the crooked company was his and not a clone.
Acting without FCA authorisation could earn him two years in jail, the letter warned – though I cannot remember the last time the regulator prosecuted someone for this.
When Tom Scruby told the FCA the scam was nothing to do with him, it placed a warning on its website. The FCA tells me it is still monitoring the scam, but did not seem aware that it is still active.
A more realistic approach came from Hertfordshire Trading Standards, acting on a tip-off from a potential victim.
It recognised straight away that the scam DFS was a clone, and the council’s community protection manager, Mike MacGregor, told me: ‘We are gathering evidence and taking appropriate action.
‘We have been in discussion with the police, and we will seek to have the website and telephone numbers taken down.’ This is something I myself would have expected the FCA to have done weeks ago.
I did telephone the fake DFS to invite a comment. A well-spoken young man said he could not connect me to Basil Scruby, and as soon as I gave my name, his tone changed. ‘This is Grove Lane Garage in Leeds,’ he insisted. ‘We have a London telephone number for the convenience of customers.’
This was news to everyone at the real Grove Lane Garage, where owner Shaun Rushworth told me he has never had a London number. But he added: ‘Somebody did defraud my business credit card in London. I think we are just another victim of these people.’
So where are the fraudsters? The London number is no clue. It is part of a big batch of numbers controlled by Dolphin Com, a business based in Crewe in Cheshire.
You want to pretend to be in London while you are really in, say, Timbuktu – no problem, Dolphin offers UK phone numbers from a huge list of area codes, with calls diverted to wherever you like. Dolphin did not reply to invitations to comment on DFS.
You may wonder how the fraudsters make money out of all this. The answer is in their letter, which says it will only help investors who have a ‘unique reference number’. There is no such thing. However, I expect the bogus DFS will fix you up with one, for a price, of course.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email [email protected]. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
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