Cyber-crime is on the increase and, like businesses in other sectors, law firms and their clients are being targeted. We take our responsibilities very seriously, which is why we employ the latest security measures to try and avoid you and our firm becoming victims.
One way criminals try to steal money is to hack into legitimate emails passing between a law firm and its clients and then try to convince the client that the law firm has changed its bank account details, to get the client to transfer money to the criminal’s bank account.
Our Client Account details are set out in our client care documents. Please refer to the client care letter before sending funds to us. We would also recommend that you call us. If you ever receive an email or other correspondence saying we have changed our bank account details you MUST contact us before transferring any money to the “new” account, as it is almost certain to be a fraud.
General Advice:
Scams will often originate via email, over the telephone or via text/WhatsApp and will usually offer you a fictitious opportunity to make a large amount of money. You should be particularly wary of any offers that suggest that you are or might be entitled to:
The intention of the fraudster will often be to obtain some money from you, perhaps by suggesting that you need to pay an ‘advance fee, ‘administration fee’ or ‘transaction fee’ to unlock funds. Equally however, fraudsters may be interested in obtaining personal or bank account details. You should be very careful about making any payments or providing any personal information.
You should be suspicious of invitations to become involved in such schemes. In particular you should be wary of:
If Bishop & Sewell does contact you, we will always provide you with full details about our firm, how we are regulated and provide our full contact details.
We recommend that you keep your anti-virus and anti-malware software up to date to reduce the risk of being caught out by online scams. More information about scams and frauds can be found at: The Solicitors Regulation Authority’ scams page here.
Should you have any doubt about the authenticity of a communication purportedly from Bishop & Sewell, or if you wish to report a scam using our name, please contact us by email: mail@bishopandsewell.co.uk
Bishop & Sewell LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales (OC 319691) and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (443824)