France’s AMF warns about fraudulent offers to buy listed shares at preferential prices
In response to a large number of reports from retail investors, France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) today issued a warning regarding offers to invest in the securities of listed large companies, whether foreign or French, at a price below their official price, by unauthorised actors or those impersonating regulated entities.
According to the reports collected by the AMF Epargne Info Service platform, retail investors are contacted generally by e-mail or telephone, after leaving their details on Internet contact forms. These fraudulent offers to buy shares in listed companies, for example US technology stocks or French stocks that are well known to the general public, are most often based on impersonations of European financial or payment institutions and can be presented in the form of “savings accounts”.
Retail investors receive investment proposals, for example, in a “GAFA savings account with guaranteed capital and indexation on the performance of Google Amazon Facebook Apple shares”, or a “Tesla Apple Facebook savings account”, “diversified savings accounts” based on shares of companies that are sometimes not even listed, fake “share purchase contracts” or “high frequency trading” (HFT) savings accounts.
Fake intermediaries also offer to buy Française des Jeux (FDJ) shares at an allegedly discounted price. The AMF had already warned the public about these fraudulent proposals to buy FDJ shares in November 2019.
There is actually no acquisition of shares behind these fraudulent offers. Once they make the transfers, the victims are unable to contact the fake advisors or to get their money back.
Since the spring of 2021, the AMF has received several hundred requests from retail investors concerning this type of investment proposal and more than a hundred complaints and reports. Investors who contacted the AMF after taking out such fraudulent offers reported high losses, with an average loss of €55,000.
The AMF reminds retail investors that investment advice and the subscription of shares on behalf of clients are regulated activities. Only authorised investment services providers, listed on the Regafi register (https://www.regafi.fr) or intermediaries authorised in the category of financial investment advisors (FIAs registered with ORIAS https://www.orias.fr/search) are qualified to carry out these activities.
The AMF recommends that investors should not respond to solicitations from persons who ask them to invest without checking that these persons have the necessary guarantees or authorisations.