The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is contacting thousands of people to warn them they could become victims of share fraud after it recovered its biggest ever ‘master list’ used by boiler room fraudsters.

The list contains the names, addresses and telephone numbers of 49,387 people which the fraudsters are using to cold call about  worthless company shares. The greatest concentration of targets is in London, although there are a significant number based in Scotland and the South East of England. The list is thought to still be in use by fraudsters operating in the UK and abroad and is likely to have been circulated between different boiler room networks.

The fraudsters usually contact people by telephone and use pressure selling to try and con investors into buying non-tradable, overpriced or even non-existent shares. These fraudsters are not authorised by the FSA and are normally based overseas although they will claim to and appear to be from within the UK.

Boiler room fraud is huge with the FSA estimating the cost in the UK to be £200 million per year. So far in 2010, the FSA has received around 4,000 calls from people who have been contacted by boiler rooms.  Around 1,000 of these are victims of boiler rooms and they lose about £20k each.

If you recieve a phonecall out of the blue offering fantastic share options then it is likely to be too good to be true. We have years of knowledge in financial services so if you are in any doubt give us a call and we will check it out for you.