An Edinburgh teacher paid AscotPrime by bank transfer, believing it was a regulated desk she had checked on the register. It was a clone. Bank-transfer routes gave us the most to work with — and the bulk came back.
How it started
Fiona researched a similarly named, genuinely registered brokerage, then opened an account with AscotPrime using a near-identical lookalike site. Over three weeks she sent £73,200 by bank transfer to a “segregated client account.” Each payment was converted to ETH within hours.
Following the money
We documented the clone — the lookalike domain, the spoofed registration details, the mismatch against the genuine firm — which is the spine of an Authorised Push Payment reimbursement claim. In parallel we traced the ETH through two hops into a KYC-bound exchange and filed a freeze request. Bank and exchange levers were pressed together.
“I checked a register and thought I was safe. Nobody told me a real firm’s name could be worn like a mask.”
The outcome
Recovered: £64,400 — 88% of the loss. Because the payments were bank transfers covered by reimbursement rules and the report was filed within weeks, the bulk was returned through the combined APP claim and exchange freeze.
Operator on file: AscotPrime. See more chain-map case studies, or open a case if this sounds like your situation. There is never a fee to send funds with us.