… am I the heir to some eccentric gazillionaire’s estate ?

Wasn’t aware that I ever had any independent share holdings – beyond ISAs etc

The letter is very vague. I’m supposed to write to them within 28 days with proof of my address and then, presumably, just wait for the gold bars to start arriving

Anyone know care to guess what’s going on ?

thousand acres of prime forestry land to the winning reply*

*T&C may apply

Anyone know care to guess what’s going on ?

With your post? Not a clue. Rambling would be an understatement. 8)

Well, you probably are a holder of RBS shares if you are a tax payer…. Send them your passport number, bank details, birth certificate and sit back and wait.

[crosses Jamie off beneficiaries list]
[looks sideways at Wallace an’ all]

Equiniti (based in Lancing) are at least implying that I’ll be in for some long-lost cash from shareholdings if I write to them. Letter has no more detail really than I’ve given, just takes several paragraphs to say it

Is the return address in Nigeria?

Do they require some sort of ‘release fee’ to recover your money?

Further reading,

http://www.friendslife.co.uk/common/layouts/subSectionLayout.jhtml?pageId=fpcouk%2FSitePageSimple%3Aequiniti_prosearch

and

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4028867

I’ve had a similar one from a firm called prosearch. They are “legit” but will charge a comission from what you are owed for what amounts to little more than a phone call. There’s a fair bit of advice on moneysavingexpert etc to the effect that you should try to find out who the investment is with and then kindly refuse and do it yourself.

I’m owed several hundreds from Friends Provident from about 15 years ago apparently.

they’re pointing me here for more info I’m mostly interested in the “share scams” part currently

“release fee”: If I delay more than 28 days there may engage a tracing agent, whose fee would be payable on release of “the entitlement”

Yeh, I saw that on moneysavingexpert – couldn’t quite work out what had happened
(I do hate vague posts on forums 😉 )

I think that you just send them your bank account details, a sample signature and your password and they will send lots of cash in return. Sent all mine off last week and I will soon be rich!

Equiniti (based in Lancing)

the do the shares for gsk, so reasonably legit, always good on the phone when i talk to them.

If only druidh was here – he’s a former finacial scammer isn’t he ?

😉 😳

oooooh, d’you think maybe I own GSK ?

Had the same letter.
Abbey national shares. Equiniti are actually part of Santander from what i recall, but they only admitted this on very direct questioning….

Both they and Abbey charge you a lot for reuniting you with your past dividend payments.
They charge a variable percentage of the cheque amount to issue ‘each’ cheque and very quickly you can loose a lot of money.
I skipped the middle man and went straight to Abbey.
When i complained about the charge for issuing each check , which can be upto 40ish%, they waived all the charges but one.
That phonecall was the quickest money i ever made.

so you just phoned them up and they told you what the shares were, Andy ?

Yes, went through to share division, had to put in writing a request for “statement of shares” (or some such thing) and confirm my old address/new address.
Then the cheques started arriving, when i saw how much they were taking off i rang them up and said oi!
They said, hmm ok and sent me some more cheques as a refund for the cheque issue fees.

Ignored the Equiniti letters.

I too was very suspicious of the original letter.

ah, bregante – I had a friends prov account years ago that turned into shares producing some pitiful dividend every year (I assume this means I had very few)

FP in turn bought out by another co and I think I should have some shares in the new co – need to look for the certificate I guess

Keep yer filthy mitts off of my GSK shares. I need them!

Which site do you work at Saccades?

I’m sure they run my company share save schemes.

was at BC for the Ware site, but left 10 years ago to ireland.

i’ve never cashed a dividend check and need to get it sorted i guess.

BC here.