Cyber-crime is on the increase, and you should be on the look-out for it to ensure that you do not become a victim of it. The website of the Solicitors Regulation Authority contains a ‘Scam Alert’ database which provides members of the public with information about known scams in which the identity of a legitimate law firm or a legitimate lawyer has been used by persons unknown for what are assumed to be criminal purposes (www.sra.org.uk).
You should be alive to the possibility that a fraudster might deliberately misrepresent himself or herself as a member of, or as someone acting on behalf of or working with, Footner & Ewing LLP for criminal purposes. Such scams normally originate by email. Often the email will either promise the recipient a share of a large sum of money in return for paying a modest sum up front (an advance fee type fraud) or request personal or financial information about the recipient or the recipient’s bank account allegedly in order that money can be paid to them (an identity theft type fraud). In an attempt to give legitimacy or respectability to the scam, sometimes the email will direct the recipient to a false website that intentionally replicates the look of a legitimate website (a cloned website).
If you receive an email purporting to come from Footner & Ewing LLP or a Firm member, or if you are directed to a website which purports to be Footner & Ewing LLP’s website, and you have doubts or concerns about the provenance of the email or website, before taking any action please contact the Firm member you normally deal with and they will tell you whether the email came from us or whether it is our website.
