Suspicious emails
Illegal use of our name
We are aware of a number of instances of scam and fraudulent communications (emails, text messages and letters) being received by members of the public, purportedly sent by a current or past employee or partner of Edwin Coe LLP. These malicious communications attempt to trick recipients into believing, for example, that they are due money, that bank account details have changed, or they may request payment of an invoice for legal services or ask to be provided with personal information and threaten legal action if you do not respond.
These communications are not genuinely from us and are sent by criminals illicitly using our name without permission in order to carry out scams or conduct fraud. If you receive any such communication, we strongly advise you to disregard it, and to refrain from responding or communicating further with the sender.
Some common themes include:
- a request to a CEO to pay Edwin Coe monies in relation to an urgent transaction – these requests are normally made on a Friday afternoon and are often called “CEO frauds”;
- a copyright or other lawsuit has been filed against you or you are summoned to appear in court;
- inheritance of a substantial sum of money or some other benefit;
- legal services fraud involving the impersonation of our firm or its lawyers to secure advance payment for legal services;
- the use of fraudulent domains or emails purporting to be connected with our firm. We’ve implemented an email security protocol called DMARC, so any emails which clients receive from @www.edwincoe.com should have originated from our firm. This makes email spoofing more difficult, but not impossible. Please be aware of the use of ‘look alike’ domains such edwincoes.com, edwincoeattorneys.com, edwincoelawfirm.com, edwinscoe.com (and many more!) – threat actors often use them to deceive unsuspecting recipients. Our lawyers will only communicate via our official email systems and will not use Gmail or similar webmail services, so please be cautious of emails purporting to be the firm from these personal email services. Always verify the sender’s address to ensure it is genuinely from us.
- impersonation of a senior person within the organisation asking for immediate payment to a law firm such as us for money on account or payment of fees. The addressee and bank account will usually be fraudulent and will redirect funds straight to the scammer. Always be alert for unusual or out of character emails, particularly concerning urgent requests or an unusual transfer of money.
- attempts to change the payment details of our invoices in general, whilst using Brexit or Covid 19 as a reason. These payments will be funnelled into a fraudulent account. We will never change our bank details without a written warning in advance. Please contact a known person within the firm via another method other than email if this happens. Don’t use the phone number in the email because it may go direct to the scammer.
Reporting scams or fraud
We report scam and fraud attempts to the relevant regulatory authorities where appropriate; however, it is impossible for us to completely stop criminals using our name and/or the names of our lawyers. We encourage you to report any information which may help us identify potential new scams or frauds purporting to come from Edwin Coe LLP by emailing us at alerts@www.edwincoe.com.
Should you have any doubt about the authenticity of a communication purportedly coming from Edwin Coe, please get in touch at alerts@www.edwincoe.com.
For further information on these and other scams or fraud, please visit the Metropolitan Police website at this link: https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/fa/fraud/personal-fraud/
The Solicitors Regulation Authority also maintains a list of known scams involving use of the names of UK law firms at this link: https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/scam-alerts/