FCA: Currency and Crypto Scams Hit £27m
|- The number of reported scams more than tripled in the last financial year.
- The FCA will run advertising campaigns to raise awareness.
As per the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK financial watchdog, scams in Britain involving currencies and cryptocurrencies totaled £27 million in the last financial year. As per FCA, the number of reported scams more than tripled in the time period to 1,800. FCA said:
“Investors will often be led to believe that their first investment has successfully made a profit.”
The way these frauds usually works is as follows:
- Fraudsters use social media to promote their scams.
- The scammer then contacts the victims for more money with a false promise of greater profits.
- The scammer inevitable disappears with the money.
To counter these scams, the FCA said that they will be running advertising campaigns to raise awareness. Mark Steward, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said:
“We’re warning the public to be suspicious of adverts which promise high returns from online trading platforms.”
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