Hanover Capital

[Jillius]

Has anyone else had some dodgy Canadian ring them offering to buy shares from you ? It all sounded genuine till they said we had to send them some money first ! Hubby told them that he could see that they were dodgy dealers and they got very rude with him and hung up !!
Beware !!

[dzug]

I'm puzzled. Why on earth should they ring to to try and buy shares from you when from the sound of it you haven't any to sell? It doesn't make sense whether they are dodgy or not.

It's usually the other way round - they ring you trying to sell you shares, and obviously they want money for them. Quite 'normal' - though actually illegal to cold call you this way and the shares they are pushing are at best high risk and at worst totally dodgy.

[buildersmate]

Anything foreign, be it Canadian, Dutch, Spanish etc. does not come under the control of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) from the UK. The FSA has at least gone some way to clean up dodgy operators under its jurisdiction. Steer clear.

[Jillius]

dzug, we do have the shares but they are doing badly and aren't worth a lot. These people can find out who have shares and they ring and offer a substantial amount of money to buy them from you. It sounds good till they start asking for money upfront.

[buildersmate]

This is of course a variant of the 'timeshare model' whereby folks claim to have found a buyer for one's timeshare at a vastly over-valued price. It's just that they need this non-refundable deposit first to start the ball rolling. Oh yeah.

[dzug]

Well to my jaundiced eye it stops sounding good virtually as soon as they identify themselves and well before they start asking for money.

If someone cold calls you on a financial matter they are breaking UK law. The fact that they are in canada means they can get away with it.

You are right to steer well clear - it's a classic boiler room tactic.

[rufuscat]

Yes, dodgy is the word! We had a warning about this
'engine room' (or was it 'boiler room'?) trading a few
months back from our Trading Standards dept.
Don't touch it with a bargepole we would suggest,, and for goodness sake register with the telephone preference service so that calls like this can be sifted out.

Neigjhbourhood Watch Co-Ordinator

[Jillius]

The telephone preference service can only block calls from the uk. These lot were ringing from Canada. If they ring back I will just put the phone down !