Fraud prevention
It is important to spot fraud and take steps to help protect yourself from becoming a victim.
Continue reading below to learn more about different types of fraud and how you could prevent being caught out.
Common types of fraud and how to try and prevent them
Investment scams
It is important to understand how to spot an investment scam.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Have you been contacted, without warning, by phone, email or social media about an investment opportunity?
Have you seen ads within your social media feeds offering unbelievable high returns on investment?
If you’ve spoken to someone, have you felt pressurised into making a decision with no time to consider the investment?
Have you been offered a high return on your investment with apparently little or no risk?
Have you been told that the investment opportunity is exclusive to a small group, for which you are one?
If the answer to any of these is yes then you may have been a victim of an investment scam.
To support the scam, fraudsters may set up cloned websites or automatically redirect you to the legitimate spw.com website. They may also send you a prospectus with Schroders Personal Wealth branding and our office address to add a layer of credibility to their scams. To build your trust you may receive an initial payment to convince you to invest larger sums of money.
Phishing scams
Fraudsters may try to use your details against you. Do not reply to any unexpected texts or emails. And don’t click on any links or attachments as they could send a virus.
Find out how to protect yourself by spotting a scam email or text message from a real one.
What to look out for:
The person sending the email wants you to send them financial or personal information. We would never message you for these.
They ask you to move your money. We will never ask you to make a test payment online or to move money to a new account. We will never ask you to move money to a secure, safe or holding account.
You don’t recognise the sender, see our "How to check if a request from us is genuine" section. If you don’t know who sent a message then it could be a scam.
Spelling mistakes. Scam emails often look odd, with a messy layout and spelling or grammatical mistakes.
A genuine message will be written in a reasonable and calm way. Scams may use warning messages, threats of fraud, or claims of problems with your account.
If you have received an email that seems suspicious you need to act now and contact your adviser immediately or send a message to emailscams@spw.com
Social engineering scams
These scams can be incredibly sophisticated and fraudsters will go to great lengths to manipulate and build trust with the victim, often impersonating people in authority such as the police, your bank and even HMRC to gather information or to convince you that your money is not safe and to move it to a safe account. They create a sense of urgency to hurry you into making a quick decision.
What you can do:
If you get a cold call then you can stay safe by hanging up the phone.
In the case of a call from the Bank Fraud Team phone the bank using a different phone line and use a number you trust, not one provided to you by the caller. If they say it’s the police you can call back on 101.
Do not transfer any money. Schroders Personal Wealth, your bank or the police will never call and ask you to move money from your account.
Do not log on to your computer during an unexpected call.
Do not let anyone take control of your computer unless you called a software provider or your internet provider for help.
Never read out what’s on your computer screen. A genuine caller would not ask you to tell them what’s on your computer screen.
Never provide your login details or passwords to anyone.
How to check if a request from us is genuine
We will never:
- Ask you to send financial or personal information via email
- Ask you to make a test payment online or to move money to a new account or a secure, safe or holding account
- Send someone to your home to collect cash, bank cards, or valuables
- Ask you to disclose your online password to us
- Ask you to download something to run on your computer
- Ask you to allow us to remote access to your computer to help you with something
We will always ask you to verify your identity before disclosing confidential information to you.
If you are unsure, then do not respond and contact us immediately to verify the request on 0800 640 4161
How to check an email from us is genuine
All Schroders Personal Wealth emails will come from one of the following:
- @spw.com for an individual
- @spw.email for an automated message
There should never be another word between spw and .com, nor between spw and email. For example hello@spw.email is correct but hello@spw.info.email is wrong.
You may receive emails from Fusion Wealth, the system (or “platform”) where your personal information and investment valuations are held. These will come from
- noreply@fusionwealth.co.uk
- info@fusionwealth.co.uk
Where you have been sent a thank you gift as part of our referral programme you may receive emails from our reward partner Ten Group which will come from schroderspersonalwealth@tengroup.com where you will be able to redeem your gift.
If you are unsure, then do not respond and contact us immediately to verify the request on 0800 640 4161
Our website domains
Our website domains are spw.com and spwforyou.com, if you access a website which is using the Schroders Personal Wealth name and it is not one of these sites please report it immediately to fraudandfinancialcrime@spw.com
If you are unsure, you can call us on 0800 640 4161
Top tips
Follow these simple steps to help keep yourself safe:
STOP
Taking a moment to stop and think before making any decisions to invest or supply personal information, especially if a call, letter, email or text has come out of the blue.
QUESTION
Does this sound too good to be true? Are there gaps in what you’re being told? Does the contact information matchup with what you find in the public domain? Schroders Personal Wealth would not rush you to make a decision.
You should always approach unsolicited contact containing urgent appeals for investment or personal information with great caution. Be sure to confirm the validity of source of the message, that it come from a trusted source by carefully examining the address itself, as well as the content within it.
PROTECT
Contact your bank immediately if you think you’ve fallen for a scam and if you live in the UK report it to Action Fraud. Contact us, so that we can assist you and protect others from falling victim to the same scams.
Fraud prevention links and resources
All of the external sites listed below are here to help you. However, we accept no responsibility or liability for the content, accuracy or availability of any external site you may encounter.
Contact us
Get in touch with us right away if you are suspicious of any communication you may have received or if you suspect that you may have been a victim of fraud using the Schroders Personal Wealth brand.
You can contact our Fraud and Financial Crime Prevention team via:
Telephone: 0800 640 4161
Email: fraudandfinancialcrime@spw.com
If you suspect you have been a victim of fraud, we advise you to report it immediately to your bank who may be able to assist you in stopping or recovering funds. You can report fraud and cyber crime if you live in the UK to Action Fraud.
When you contact Schroders Personal Wealth, we will investigate your suspicions and where possible take necessary steps to prevent others falling victim to the same scam.
Please note that any information sent via email is not secure and could be read by others.