by Howard Haykin

Broker-dealers report that they’ve been getting suspicious telephone calls from persons claiming to work for FINRA and requesting various types of information from the firms.

• In one instance, a caller claiming to work for FINRA stating that she wanted to obtain the contact information of key firm personnel for an upcoming FINRA event. The imposter refused to provide any information about herself other than a bogus telephone number and phony finra.org email address.

• In another instance, several people at a firm were contacted by a woman seeking sensitive material who claimed to be a FINRA employee in the United Kingdom. The imposter provided the firm with a United Kingdom telephone number and an email address that used @finra.org.co.uk as the domain name.

FINRA RECOMMENDS … that firms use caution when receiving calls and emails purportedly from someone at FINRA requesting any type of information - confidential or otherwise.

• Before providing any information or responding to an email, firms should verify the identity of the caller or sender; when in doubt about the legitimacy of any communication, contact your Regulatory Coordinators directly.
• Always be leery of overseas telephone numbers or email addresses - FINRA does not use overseas telephone numbers or foreign email domains when contacting firms.
• Exercise similar caution before responding to any regulatory inquiry that purports to be from the SEC or any other regulator.