Fairstone has partnered with the Regional Economic Crime Coordination Centre (RECCC) to help raise awareness and safeguard the financial wellbeing of our staff and clients.

The RECCC promotes the use of the ‘Take 5 to stop fraud’ principles, this includes:

STOP – Taking a moment to stop and think before parting with your money or information could keep you safe.

CHALLENGE – Could it be fake? It’s ok to reject, refuse or ignore any requests. Only criminals will try and rush or panic you.

PROTECT – Contact your bank immediately if you think you have fallen for a scam and report it to action fraud.

Fraudsters can often try and impersonate a legitimate firm. There are many signs of fraud some more obvious than others. Most commonly they can attempt to contact you via:

• A cold call
• An email address that is filled with random numbers or is misspelt
• Via social media apps

They may also ask you to click on a link giving them access to your device and personal information. They can also:

• Try and entice you by mentioning guarantees, or high returns
• Request upfront payments
• Impersonate a legitimate firm and represent themselves as an employee using their name and details stored on the Financial Services register

How Fairstone will communicate with you

Your adviser or dedicated Fairstone staff member can contact you by phone, email, face to face meetings or video calls. Please always check the domain names of any emails received and save our number in your phone.

Fairstone’s emails are encrypted to prevent phishing attempts. This will not prevent phishing attacks on your personal email account, so we always ask that you never email your bank account details unless you password protect a document and inform your adviser of the password independently. Never include the password in the email with the protected document.

We will never text you requesting your bank details and personal information.

Protecting yourself from scams

The FCA has provided the following information on the general things we should do to avoid scams:

• Treat all unexpected calls, emails, and text messages with caution. Don’t assume they’re genuine, even if the person seems to know some basic information about you
• Don’t be pressured into acting quickly. A genuine bank or financial services firm won’t mind waiting if you want time to think
• Never give out your bank account or credit card details unless you are certain who you are dealing with
• If you are buying a financial product such as a loan, insurance, investments, or pension, only deal with a FCA authorised firm. Check the FS register to see if the firm is registered
• Double-check the URL and contact details of a firm in case it’s a ‘clone firm’ pretending to be a real firm, such as your bank or a genuine investment firm
• Check the list of unauthorised firms and individuals we’ve received complaints about. If the firm isn’t on our list, don’t assume it’s legitimate – it may not have been reported to us yet
• Check your bank account and credit card statements regularly
• Don’t give access to your device by downloading software or an app from a source you don’t trust. Scammers may be able to view, take control of your device and access your bank account

The FCA offer a wealth of information on how to protect yourself, you can read more here ScamSmart – Avoid investment and pension scams | FCA

You can find out more about reporting a scam here Report a scam to us | FCA

Action Fraud

If you are a victim, a witness or you need to report a fraudulent activity on behalf of a victim you can also report via Action Fraud. Further details can be found at Action Fraud

Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)

The FSCS regularly updates their scam page with the latest FSCS scams they are seeing. Further details can be found here The ongoing fight against scams | FSCS