The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (“CySEC”) has warned investors about incidents of impersonation of its officers and representatives and of fake websites.
According to a CySEC press release, it has recently detected new cases of fraudulent impersonation of CySEC officers and representatives. It calls upon investors to be particularly vigilant of imposters soliciting fees in exchange for settlement of bogus compensation claims related to firms under CySEC supervision.
For that reason, CySEC would like to remind the public that it never sends unsolicited correspondence to investors or members of the public, nor does it ever request any personal data, financial or otherwise.
These cases, it adds, are part of a sophisticated online campaign to defraud investors. Investors should be alert to these scams which in recent cases have taken the form of fraudsters claiming to be CySEC officers, appointed representatives of CySEC, such as legal advisors, other Cypriot supervisory authorities or other real or fake bodies. In other instances, the scammers contact clients of CySEC regulated entities, often via email and sometimes by telephone, which appear genuine and include the name, address, official stamp and logo of CySEC, fraudulently copying CySEC officials’ signatures.
In addition, the fraudsters make false offers to assist investors with compensation claims for dealings they may have had with sanctioned firms – typically online trading firms offering speculative investment products and through these preliminary contacts, the fraudsters illegally obtain additional personal information.
CySEC has issued multiple public warnings when similar cases occur, which are published on its website at: https://www.cysec.gov.cy/en-GB/public-info/warnings/cysec/ and https://www.cysec.gov.cy/el-GR/public-info/announcements/
CySEC urges the public to remain vigilant any unsolicited communication purporting to be from CySEC and to refrain from giving money to anyone who approaches them in a similar way to the examples given above. Investors are strongly advised to contact CySEC to confirm the authenticity of the communication by contacting info@cysec.gov.cy before taking any action.
Meanwhile, it notes that it has recently detected new cases of fraudulent impersonation of its web site https://www.cysec.gov.cy and detected persons fraudulently presenting themselves as CySEC Officers.
The fake websites are: cysec-regulatory.com, www.cysecsupport.online, www.cysec-support.online, www.cysecgov.com and www.cysecs.group
Investors should be particularly vigilant of imposters soliciting fees in exchange for settlement of bogus compensation claims.
CySEC would therefore like to remind the public that it never sends unsolicited correspondence to investors, or the public, nor does it request payments, or individual personal data, financial or otherwise. It is therefore likely that any such demands will be part of a sophisticated online campaign to defraud investors.
It notes that as a regulatory authority, CySEC has no authority or jurisdiction to collect fees for any purpose from individual investors, nor does it have authority to appoint anyone to do so on its behalf.
CySEC does not authorize, verify, monitor, nor is it in any way involved in class actions, compensation schemes, payments between natural or legal entities or any public or private agencies.
CySEC urges the public to remain vigilant regarding any unsolicited communication purporting to be from CySEC and to refrain from giving money to anyone who claims to be representing CySEC. Investors receiving any such communications are strongly advised to contact CySEC to confirm the authenticity of the communication at info@cysec.gov.cy before taking any action, it concludes.
Source: Cyprus News Agency