Warning about fraudsters impersonating Hanfa employees
We would like to once again draw the attention of the public to the fact that Hanfa does not provide investment advice, investment assistance, brokerage services, or services related to the recovery or reimbursement of funds lost through fraud. Furthermore, Hanfa employees do not contact members of the public by telephone, email, social media or any other means to offer such or similar services.
Hanfa has received a significant number of reports from citizens regarding fraud schemes in which individuals contact potential victims by telephone, social media or email while falsely claiming to be Hanfa employees. These fraudsters offer purported assistance with investing or with the “release”, recovery or return of funds allegedly lost in online or investment scams.
Particular attention should be drawn to cases where suspicious entities have offered assistance in recovering funds lost through investments. Citizens who trusted such offers and transferred the requested funds became victims of a further fraud. In some instances, the entities claiming to assist with fund recovery may in fact be the same entities involved in the original fraud, merely approaching victims under different identities, using different email addresses, telephone numbers or social media profiles.
Hanfa is aware that its name, data and logo are being misused for fraudulent purposes and has on several occasions informed the public about such cases. We therefore advise citizens to exercise caution when considering investments and not to engage with entities that are not authorised to operate, namely those that are not registered and supervised by Hanfa or do not have permission to provide services in the Republic of Croatia under the EU notification regime. It is therefore important to verify whether a particular entity appears in Hanfa’s Register of firms authorised to provide investment services and perform investment activities, or in the Register of notifications from EU Member States.
Useful information
Before making any investment decision, Hanfa encourages citizens to visit its website www.hanfa.hr and consult the following resources:
- Hanfa’s registers, containing details of firms authorised to provide services in Croatia
- List of suspicious entities, which includes entities known to Hanfa to be targeting Croatian citizens despite not being listed in Hanfa’s registers
- Consumers Section, which contains educational materials, information on public education events and lectures, useful information about financial markets, and Hanfa warnings
- Fraud Section, which provides information on the most common types of financial fraud, guidance on how to recognise them, and current warnings.
We urge citizens to remain vigilant, not to trust suspicious offers and not to transfer money to individuals who contact them while claiming to be Hanfa employees. If citizens are uncertain whether they may be dealing with an investment scam, they may contact Hanfa by email at info@hanfa.hr or by telephone on 01/6173-200.
Examples of the fraud mentioned above:
