FCA flags three new investment-brand clones on 30 October, including impersonation of Octopus and Shard firms

The Financial Conduct Authority added new warnings on 30 October about investment-branded operators using identities associated with authorised businesses. The regulator named a website impersonating Octopus Investments, another borrowing the Shard Credit Partners name, and a separate entry labelled Northern Index, described as a clone of an authorised fund. These are newly listed warning entries, not three findings that the real authorised companies are operating improperly.[1][2][3]

The Octopus warning is especially specific. It says an operator using a 'client.octopus-firm.com' address has been contacting people while pretending to be the genuine Octopus Investments Limited, an FCA-authorised firm with reference number 194779. The regulator identifies the authentic company as having no connection with the clone. The identity test cannot end with seeing the word 'Octopus' in a website URL, email signature or supplied firm reference number.[1][2][3]

The Shard warning illustrates a second pattern: the FCA says the impersonating site borrows details associated with two genuine regulated entities, Shard Capital AIFM LLP, firm reference 615463, and Shard Credit Partners Ltd, reference 702785. Multiple real reference numbers can therefore appear in the same impersonation operation. Verifying that a number exists, without independently checking that the email and phone number belong to that company, would miss the central risk.[1][2][3]

A different risk from the performance of a genuine broker

A clone-firm warning concerns the identity of the person or website soliciting money. It is not a regulatory assessment of the genuine firm's investment strategy, spreads, execution quality or solvency. The FCA notes that contact details can change and that impersonators may mix genuine data with invented phone numbers or websites. An investor should independently retrieve the authorised firm's contact routes from the FCA Firm Checker rather than return a call through details supplied by the unexpected promoter.[1][2][3]

The regulator states that dealing with an unauthorised clone does not confer the ordinary Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme protections for that transaction. The FCA also separately notes potential payment-scam reimbursement protections for some qualifying transfers from 7 October 2024; those must not be misrepresented as general investment compensation or a guarantee that losses will be recovered.[1][2][3]

The three warnings establish the names and contact details the FCA associates with the impersonation attempts. They give no victim count, total loss or criminal-court outcome. Customers checking an approach should retrieve the genuine firm's contact details independently from the FCA's own records, rather than rely on a real reference number supplied by the caller.[1][2][3]

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