A Cloned Licence, a Real Loss: Recovering 92% From Westhill Pros
Westhill Pros did its homework — it copied a genuinely regulated firm’s registration number and address. Our clients checked the register, saw a match, and wired their savings to a fraud.
Our clients — a couple in their fifties in Leeds — were cold-approached by Westhill Pros offering a “managed portfolio.” When they checked the firm’s registration number against the regulator’s public register, it matched a real authorised company. The number was cloned; the people they spoke to had no connection to it.
Reassured by the “match,” they wired £92,500 from their bank, which the platform promptly converted to BTC and moved on.
Nine days later, asked for a further “activation transfer,” they called the real registered firm directly — which had never heard of them. They contacted us the same afternoon, and that speed defined the outcome.
Acted the same day
Because they reported nine days in — and within hours of realising — the bank transfer and the on-chain conversion were both still traceable.
Triggered the bank fraud route
We helped them raise an APP (authorised push payment) fraud claim immediately, freezing what remained at the beneficiary bank.
Traced the BTC conversion
The platform’s conversion of the wired funds to BTC led, within two hops, to a deposit address at a compliant exchange.
Preserved and reported
We sent an evidenced freeze request to the receiving exchange and documented the cloned-firm fraud for the regulator and police.
Recovered across both channels
A bank reimbursement on the APP claim combined with the exchange’s release of traced BTC returned the large majority.
£85,100 of the £92,500 was returned — one of our strongest results, possible only because they verified independently and reported within hours. Clone fraud caught early is among the more recoverable cases; caught late it is among the worst.
- A cold approach from a “managed portfolio” firm you did not seek out.
- A registration number that matches the register but contact details that do not.
- Pressure to wire funds quickly to secure an “allocation.”
- Bank funds promptly converted to BTC by the platform.
- A follow-up “activation” or “release” transfer requested after the first.
Did a firm like Westhill Pros use a cloned registration to take your money?
Clone-firm fraud reported within days has some of the best recovery odds — the bank and chain trails are often still live. Contact us now; the assessment is free and the first steps are time-critical.
Request a free case review →