Fraud and scams

Fraud Alert—misuse of our details in scams and phishing attempts

Unfortunately, like many reputable firms, our name is sometimes misused in scams and phishing attempts.

These fraudulent activities may involve the use of Russell-Cooke’s brand name, logo, or the names of our partners and/or other members of the firm in an attempt to mislead.

Scammers may contact individuals by phone, email or text / WhatsApp message, and may send fake documents that purport to be from Russell-Cooke.

Contact us

If you receive any communication claiming to be from Russell-Cooke and you have any doubt as to its authenticity:

• Do not click on any links contained within the communication.
• Avoid responding or providing any personal information by phone or email.
• Let us know by contacting [email protected], or, if you are a client, by speaking to your usual Russell-Cooke contact.
• Consider deleting any electronic communications from the relevant mailbox.
• Report the incident to Action Fraud.

If you have received a suspicious email purporting to come from us, we may ask you to forward it to us as an attachment to a new email. This helps us to make any appropriate reports / notifications, including to regulatory and/or law enforcement bodies and take steps to shut down the fraudulent domain.

Important note for existing clients

We are aware that scams may seek to use an email or web address that is similar to Russell-Cooke’s genuine address. Scams may also ‘spoof’ Russell-Cooke’s genuine email address so that an email appears to have been sent by Russell-Cooke (e.g. the ‘sender’ may appear as ‘Russell-Cooke’); however, when interrogated (by hovering over the sender’s email address), the true email address of the sender will not be a genuine Russell-Cooke email address. Please pay particularly close attention to those details in any correspondence that you may receive.

You should also note that:

• Official Russell-Cooke emails will always come from an email address ending with russell-cooke.co.uk.
• Russell-Cooke’s official website address is www.russell-cooke.co.uk
• We will only ever provide our bank account details in the form of an original or PDF Russell-Cooke headed letter sent either by mail or as an attachment to an email.  If you receive any communication suggesting that our bank account details have changed, please treat it as fraudulent – it will not have come from us.

If you are a current client and the communication purports to relate to your matter (e.g. a conveyancing transaction) you should immediately contact the person at Russell-Cooke who is dealing with your matter by phone (not email) using a previously supplied number and not the one in the suspicious communication, and not act on the communication unless and until you are satisfied that it is genuine.