Fraudulent letters targeting charities pretending to be the Charity Commission

The Charity Commission has issued an alert to charities following reports of letters being sent by fraudsters impersonating the Charity Commission.

The Charity Commission has issued an urgent warning regarding fraudulent messages being sent to charities and trustees, impersonating its representatives.

These fraudulent messages often ask charities to remove a trustee, release funds or provide documents to them like passports or utility bills.

Other regulators, including HMRC and the Information Commissioner’s Office, have previously issued similar warnings as fraudsters try to exploit the authority of public bodies for criminal gain.

How to recognise genuine correspondence from the Charity Commission

Distinguishing between genuine and fraudulent correspondence can be challenging, but the Charity Commission give the following guidance as to how to spot genuine correspondence from them:

• the Charity Commission will send letters by post only if there is no current email address on file;

• letters are rarely addressed generically, such as ‘to whom it may concern’;

• the Commission does not provide tax exemption certificates to UK charities;

• the Commission does not issue requests to authenticate accounts online by asking for personal identity documents; and

• the Commission will never request banking information.

In the rare event that a letter is sent by post by the Charity Commission, it will:

• be franked – not stamped;

• usually include a case number or reference; and

• come from the Charity Commission for ‘England and Wales’ (it will not come from the Charity Commission for the ‘UK’ or ‘England’).

Genuine correspondence from the Charity Commission is unlikely to be marked ‘Strictly Private and Confidential’, nor is it likely to contain serious allegations against individuals before clear evidence is found of wrongdoing.

Action plan for charities

Charities should inform all staff of this issue immediately so that they are aware of the risk of receiving such correspondence.

If you have any doubts as to the authenticity of an email or letter, contact the Charity Commission directly via their publicly available contact details (rather than the contact details within the letter) to check.

The Charity Commission can be contacted by telephone on 0300 066 9197. Their lines are open 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday.

What to do if you’ve responded to a communication and later think you may be a victim of fraud

In the event that you’ve responded to correspondence that you later think may have been fraudulent, you should take immediate steps to identify and mitigate the risk of a fraud.

Depending on the nature of the information disclosed, significant steps may also be needed to report the fraud, for example charities may need to:

• submit a serious incident report to the Charity Commission;

• assess a personal data breach, potentially requiring a report to the Information Commissioner’s Office; and/or

• submit a report to the Police/Action Fraud. 

Wrigleys’ charities team are available to support you through this process.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of this article further, please contact the charities and social economy team on 0113 244 6100.

You can also keep up to date by following Wrigleys Solicitors on LinkedIn.

The information in this article is necessarily of a general nature.  The law stated is correct at the date (stated above) this article was first posted to our website. Specific advice should be sought for specific situations. If you have any queries or need any legal advice please feel free to contact Wrigleys Solicitors.