The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued multiple warnings to investors advising them not to use the services of several clone/unregulated brokerage firms.
The latest regulatory flurry includes forex brokers, asset managers and crypto websites that appear to be soliciting and/or accepting funds from UK residents without having obtained FCA registration.
The regulator has warned against a firm called SAXOFX-24. Although the FCA didn’t actually come out and say it, but the copycat broker is apparently posing as a regulated firm to convince local traders that it was the authorized online trading firm that had contacted them.
SAXOFX was not only identifying itself as a well-known online trading company under false pretenses, but it was operating without authorization as well. That alone is a major violation of British law.
Where the FCA identifies fraudulent websites, it is proactive in requesting the website host shut them down, though it does not have the powers to force them to. Between May 2021 and April 2022, the FCA added 1,966 possible scams to its consumer warning list – over a third more than during the same period the previous year.
Clone firms are not an unusual occurrence in the industry, as fraudsters have grown increasingly resourceful in recent years. In a cloned scam, the fraudsters copy or “clone” a legitimate website. The copy of the website can be astonishingly exact, or just an approximation with copied logos, but the…
