Financial Conduct Authority Flags KBC Securities Scammer

Imagine, if you will, waking up in the morning, making a fresh cup of coffee, brushing those yellow-stained teeth of yours and then settling down for a nice long day of cold calling people to scam them out of their money by pretending to represent a large financial institution.

Unless you have a Vanuatu license and Kiev office, the chances are that doesn’t sound too appealing to you. And yet every day, a seemingly endless supply of people decide that this is how they are going to make their mark on the world.

Who are these people? What’s wrong with them? I don’t know, but they have about as much honor as Juntao in Rush Hour 1 or Ricky Tan in Rush Hour 2.

Anyhizzle, this Friday, that most beloved of financial regulators, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said that someone had been cold calling members of the Great British public, pretending to represent KBC Securities.

KBC Securities Faker

Some of you may not know KBC Securities and that’s okay - no one’s judging you here. The company is based in Belgium and provides equity research, corporate finance and market making services.

Being the gentlemanly types that they are over at the FCA, the regulator has listed the fraudster’s phone number on their warnings page. This author tried to reach out to the fraudster, but unfortunately, his phone wasn’t working.

Similar calls that the author has made in the past, in which I ask “why are you doing this?”, “who are you?” or “have you been to the Duck and Waffle next to your office?”, always result in my being hung up on.

This particular fraudster also claims to have an office on Cheapside, near to the indestructible dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. But, if past experience is anything to go by, this office is probably a fake too.

How can we stop these people from carrying out their dastardly schemes? No one knows. We’ll have to try and get Lee and Carter on the case.