Illegal Use of our Name

There are illegal frauds in operation in which the Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Limited name and/or the names of our lawyers are being misused.

Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Limited and its lawyers have no involvement in any such schemes.

Fake schemes may involve emails, letters, telephone calls, text messages, instant messages, and fraudulent profiles on social media platforms including Face Book, Instagram. and LinkedIn.

Social Media

Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Limited do not have any accounts on any of the Meta platforms, for instance Face Book and Instagram. We also do not use LinkedIn.

The methods used by fraudsters are constantly changing, but one of the most common is when  fraudsters use domain names closely resembling ours or create lookalike websites and use email to contact clients.

This is how a Man in the Middle Fraud works…

When a fraudster uses a domain name similar to ours to this is known as ‘man in the middle fraud’.

A man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack is a cybercrime where a hacker secretly intercepts and relays communications between two parties who believe they are talking directly to each other.

How It Works

• Interception: The criminal places themselves in the middle of a data path, such as between your phone, your email and genuine services, like your bank and solicitor.

or,

• Eavesdropping or Alteration: The attacker can quietly steal passwords and credit card numbers, or change the messages in transit without either side knowing. Sometimes fraudsters use Public Wi-Fi to hack into accounts by setting up fake hotspots in places like coffee shops to monitor user data.

Usually, the fraudsters access your PC or phone by sending an email or text to you, you click on a link in the email or text that allows them to download some software on your phone. You will not be able to see this software.  The downloaded software allows the fraudsters access to your PC or phone. In some cases, the fraudsters can see everything that is on your phone including your banking apps, photos and your email.

Fake Q-codes can be used in the same way when you inadvertently scan one.

After gaining access to a device the attackers can trick a device into routing traffic through a malicious server instead of a legitimate website and this is known as IP or DNS Spoofing.

Sending funds to the fraudsters

If you are buying a house the criminals will know that at some point you are likely to send your solicitor a deposit or the purchase funds. Your solicitor sends you a genuine email about your house purchase. The fraudsters see this and then send you a spoofed email purporting to be from your solicitor and ask you to transfer quite a large amount of money.

They may also try to create a sense of panic and time urgency, so you may be told that you will lose the house you want to purchase if you don’t make the payment straightaway.

The fraud is perpetrated because the fraudsters have set up a fake domain name by registering it with a legitimate internet domain registrant and creating an email account using the new domain name hosted through a legitimate internet service provider.

They then start to spoof emails from your solicitor and when you get an email from them (that looks like a genuine email from your real solicitor) asking you for a payment and giving you different bank details instead of our own genuine bank details, there is a danger that unless you always check with us first before sending any funds that you will lose a substantial amount of money.

Genuine emails from Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Limited use only the “@hannayslaw.co.uk” domain. We do not use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or any other free or third-party email services. A fraudulent email may have spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and a cut and pasted disclaimer at the end of an email.

You should remain alert to email addresses that use deliberately misspelt or slightly altered versions of our domain name, for example:

• [name]@hannayslaw.com
• [name]@hannayslegal.com
• [name]@hannayslaw-co.uk (this one is very near to our own domain name as it includes a dash instead of a full stop before co).
• [name]@hannays-law.com

This list is not exclusive – new variations are constantly being registered by criminals.

Will my bank reimburse me?

The bank may or may not be able to return these funds to you depending up the circumstances.

How to Protect Yourself

• Check for HTTPS: Ensure websites use secure, encrypted connections before entering private data.
• Avoid Public Wi-Fi: Do not log into sensitive accounts like online banking while connected to unsecured public network
• Always check with us first before you send any money to us. We advise that you send a £1 test payment and we will confirm to you that we have received when you call us using our phone numbers. Our phone numbers are on the end of the client care letter that you receive from us at the start of your instructions/transaction.
• We will never change our bank details during a transaction.

What you should do if you suspect fraudulent activity

• Do not reply to or engage with any communication you suspect to be fraudulent
• Do not click on links or open attachments in suspicious messages

• To check whether a communication is genuine contact us by calling 0191 4974631 or 0191 4555361.
• If you receive an email purporting to be from Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Limited that you wish to report, please contact us by calling 0191 4974631 or 0191 4555361 and we will guide you to providing us with the email details so that we can take action against the fake domain.

• For additional guidance, the Solicitors Regulation Authority publishes fraud alerts at sra.org.uk/consumers/scam-alerts
• Call your banks fraud team by using the phone number on their website.
• Report the fraud to https://www.reportfraud.police.uk/

Please be vigilant

If you receive an unexpected or unusual communication that appears to come from our firm or one of our staff asking you to send us funds, do not reply or take any action until you have verified that it is genuinely from us.

Contact us directly to confirm authenticity by calling 0191 4974631 or 0191 4555361.