The Times - UK (2022-01-19)

22 Wednesday January 19 2022 | the times

News

IN THE TIMES

TOMORROW

IAN KING

Is there a venture

capital bubble?

MAIN PAPER

BUSINESS

THE TABLE

SPORT

BOILING POINT

The dark side of being a chef

PULLOUT

COMMENT

Ministers are to crack down on mis-

leading adverts for cryptocurren-

cies such as Bitcoin amid concern that

some investors have a limited under-

standing of what they are buying.

Adverts promoting the currencies

will have to adhere to the same stan-

dards as other financial products, the

government has announced.

About 2.3 million people in the UK

are thought to own a crypto asset. The

Treasury is concerned that some

people may not have a comprehensive

knowledge of what they are investing in

and could be at risk of being mis-sold to.

New legislation will place the promo-

tion of crypto assets under Financial

Conduct Authority (FCA) rules. Adver-

tising will have to be fair and clear and

help people make informed decisions.

The FCA is forecasting that fraud re-

lating to cryptocurrencies will boom

this year, overtaking pandemic-related,

parcel delivery and fixed-rate bond

scams, which dominated last year.

Santander UK recently warned that

about £1 million of cryptocurrency

scams were being reported by custom-

ers each month.

Gareth Southgate, the England foot-

ball manager, is looking into legal

options after his name was used to pro-

mote a cryptocurrency scam. A spokes-

Misleading cryptocurrency adverts

to be banned amid spike in fraud

who, over a period of about three

weeks, persuaded her to transfer more

than £175,000, which she had inherited

from a property sale, to an account for

a firm called DC Market.

When her family expressed concern,

Hill contacted her bank, HSBC, and the

police, although neither were immedi-

ately convinced it was a scam. HSBC

advised her to seek financial advice and

not to send any more money.

However, when Hill asked for her

cash back, the broker said that because

she wanted her money back sooner

than anticipated, she would need to pay

a termination fee. He claimed her in-

vestment had surged to £500,000.

Hill then invested a further £70,000

over three days. When the broker again

called asking for money, she told him

she had run out of funds. “At this point

I knew it must be a scam and I simply

stopped answering his calls. I tried to

log into my DC Market account, but I

was locked out.”

The website DCMarket.io states it

was registered with Namecheap, a US

company. It insisted it tried to prevent

abusive domain registrations and re-

duce internet fraud.

HSBC said: “We are sorry that Ms

Hill has been a victim of a scam. As this

case highlights, there are unscrupulous

criminals who use a range of tech-

niques to exploit their victims. Protect-

ing customers from fraud is an absolute

priority for us.”

Ali Hussain Chief Money Reporter

Tom Knowles

Technology Correspondent

How to protect yourself

6 Do not assume a

Bitcoin advert is real.

Professional-looking

websites, adverts or

social media posts do

not always mean that

an investment

opportunity is genuine.

6 Never download

anything to your

computer that allows

someone you do not

know to gain access.

6 Check the Financial

Conduct Authority

website for warnings

about the firm you

are dealing with:

fca.org.uk/scamsmart/

warning-list

6 Be wary if you are

pressed to invest

quickly or promised

returns that sound too

good to be true.

6 Avoid uninvited

investment offers,

especially those made

via cold calls on the

phone.

JAMES MARRIOTT

You need to break rules

to get ahead

MAIN PAPER

MIKE ATHERTON

My lasting memories

of a dismal Ashes

MAIN PAPER

man for Southgate told the BBC: “His

name has been used without permis-

sion. As such, his management team

are taking legal advice on the matter.”

The FCA scans the internet for

crypto scams and has issued about 60

warnings this year compared

with about 100 for the whole

of 2021.

There is no protection

for consumers if the

crypto firm holding

their money goes

bust. Victims cannot

take a complaint to

the Financial Om-

budsman Service, and

crypto, unlike cash held

with a high street bank, is not protected

by the Financial Services Compensa-

tion Scheme safety net for savers. This

can cover up to £85,000 should the firm

holding a consumer’s money go bust.

Janet Hill, a retired charity worker,

fell victim to a crypto-scam that

cost her her life savings after

she saw a pop-up advert

on her phone, featuring

the TV presenter Holly

Willoughby and the

businesswoman Deb-

orah Meaden.

Hill, 70, who lives

with her husband in

Sutton, south London,

clicked on a link and en-

tered details on a website.

She was contacted by a man

claiming to be a Bitcoin broker

Janet Hill lost £250,000 to a

fraudulent Bitcoin broker

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