False investment or false credit scams are intensifying. The Prudential Control and Resolution Authority (ACPR) and the AMF maintain a blacklist of fraudulent sites.
The numbers are dizzying. With the increase in financial scams, particularly on social networks or by telephone, victims can lose tens, or even hundreds of thousands of euros.
This is the case of this couple of lawyers who lost 300,000 euros, enticed by a false bank book supposedly marketed by Allianz. The insurer had its name usurped like many financial institutions.
According to the latest report from the ACPR, the French financial services watchdog, the average loss observed concerning false booklets amounts to 93,000 euros in 2023, with even a file worth 1 million euros. Concerning false credits, the average loss is 13,000 euros, but can be higher in certain files, up to 60,000 euros.
Real estate credit: this terrible scam that threatens you
A continuously updated blacklist…
The ACPR and the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) regularly warn the general public against the increase in scams surrounding financial products. To do this, simply consult the blacklist of listed companies. This blacklist is updated as fraudulent sites are created. It lists more than 1,200 structures which offer credits, savings accounts, payment services or insurance contracts; investments in Forex (exchange market); derivative products on crypto-assets; binary options and investments in various goods (diamonds, wine, crypto-assets, etc.).
Since January 1, 2024, the AMF has added 3 names to its list of unauthorized sites offering investments in various gold assets: inaia.fr, login.esayinvest1.fr and fiouest.com
Since the creation in 2017 of a blacklist concerning offers of various unauthorized goods, the AMF has included nearly 400 site addresses on this list which first concerned diamonds and which then extended to offers investment in cattle, wines and champagnes in particular, indicates the AMF in a press release released this Wednesday.
Attention, This list is updated regularly but is not intended to be complete because new unauthorized actors appear regularly, warns the AMF. This list allows you to ensure that a given site is safe, but the absence of a site from this list does not guarantee its reliability. Other databases allow you to verify that the establishments requesting you have an authorization to practice: in particular the Regafi, register of financial agentsor theOriaswho holds the single register of intermediaries in banking, insurance and finance.
Savings, insurance, stock market… The weapons of the financial police to protect you from scams