Boiler Room Scams

Boiler Rooms are businesses that use high-pressure sales techniques to sell investments with the promise of almost guaranteed massive returns. What is actually being sold is worthless stock in companies that are either overvalued or don’t exist. According to the Financial Services Authority investors lose on average £20,000.

Targets for this type of scam are usually cold-called using phone numbers obtained from public shareholder lists. These callers are often based overseas as it is against the law for investors to cold-call in the UK and they are then beyond the jurisdiction of the FSA.

A Boiler Room may look and sound legitimate and have a UK address, phone number or a slick website. They may call potential investors for many months hoping for a sale and are very persistent even catching out experienced investors.