FCA Becomes Target Of Bitcoin Email Fraud

This is called hitting them where they live. The Financial Conduct Authority, was recently, hit by an email Bitcoin fraud.However, the scam did not have the desired effect as the recipients of the scam publicized the fraud, instead of falling for it. According to news portal, Cryptopolitan, the email recipients instantly forewarned the FCA authorities upon seeing the impersonation of the Bank of England Prudential Regulation Authority logo and contents endorsing Bitcoin “as a guaranteed return”.The scam email claimed that bitcoin was about to make history in 2020 by exceeding its past all time high (ATH) of $20,000, prompting them to go to a “Click here” option, to invest further. The news portal stated that an irate user Dominic Thomas was inundated with back to back emails since Friday, which prompted him to report the matter to the FCA.Earlier this month, the FCA announced that it was planning to address harm to retail consumers from the sale of derivatives and exchange traded notes (ETNs) referencing certain types of cryptoassets, as per an official press release.Speaking about this development, Christopher Woolard, Executive Director of Strategy & Competition at the FCA, had said, “As with our work on the wider CFD and binary options markets, we will act when we see poor products being sold to retail consumers. These are complex contracts built on top of complex assets.”However, last week, we reported that the regulatory body is looking for experts in cryptocurrency. The official website describes the role as one that will involve, “considerable amounts of liaison and stakeholder management with internal and external patterns on the topic of crypto assets, financial and economic crime linked themes and the role of various processes and areas in regulating this activity.”The post said that the candidate would learn a great deal of opportunity to learn from and understand intelligence processes and work, and influence the way we support the breadth and depth of the FCA remit, including the new area of Crypto asset regulation.While the FCA did not issue a public statement about this particular fraud, it has on occasions, asked the public to be wary of people impersonating officials from the regulatory body.Liked what you read? Join us on Telegram