Belgium’s FSMA Issues Boiler Room Scams Warning

Belgium's financial watchdog, the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), published this Thursday a list of newly found unregulated entities. The regulator cautioned against these, believing them to be boiler room scams.

The FSMA warned against the following firms: ABConseils-patrimoine.com (www.abconseils-patrimoine.com, ); Takahashi and Partners (https://takahashipartners.com/); Tan Allen Piguet Asset Management (https://www.tapam.com/).

The official statement by the FSMA released earlier states that these companies are prohibited from offering investment to traders, in or out of Belgium. The watchdog furthers this by advising users to not invest in either one of these.

Crucially, the Belgium license issuer has warned consumers against complying with “cold callings”, which are unsolicited investing offers from shady brokers or other alleged financial-services companies. The FSMA also consults investors to never transfer money to bank accounts outside of Belgium territory.

Boiler room scams are one of the most common ways that fraudsters phish out deposits from unsolicited users. The premise goes as follows: internet users are contacted usually by phone, although there are other ways of reaching, wherein they are offered to buy financial products. The boiler room scams have recently seen an evolution, as they continually adapt. Claiming to be licensed by financial overseers and offering personalized websites, are just some of the direction these evolving schemes are taking.