It has been brought to our attention by BEIS that a fake grant email is making the rounds. The sender poses as an employee of Telereal Secured Finance PLC (which is a registered company) aka Easy Finance and seeks to elicit money from a business by setting up a prepaid MasterCard account as part of a receiving their funding.

The text of the email is below (minus the phishing link) so that you are aware and can ensure you remain vigilant against this type of fraud.

Hi xxxxx,

We are pleased to say you have been fully approved and accepted onto the ESY-438 Grant Program through us at Telereal Secured Finance PLC, otherwise known as Easy Finance.

PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE EMAIL CAREFULLY AS IT CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

The funding is completely non-repayable and is NOT secured in anyway. This is a Government backed grant and you can find the amount you have been awarded, how the funding works, the full process of what to do next and all the terms on the attached acceptance forms.

You must print, complete, sign and then return the acceptance form directly back to us by email before Monday the 23rd of July 2018. 

• You must also provide us with a copy of one form of photo ID and one form of proof of address. Please send these to us by email at the same time as the acceptance form, before the above date.

• Photos on your phone are OK providing they are clear and visible, alternatively normal scanned images are fine.

Failure to return the attached form and ID/Address Proof by the 23rd of July may result in the funding being withdrawn.

We are sorry for the urgency in this matter, however the grant you have been awarded is currently in a trial period and the results of the trial need to be sent over to the Governments business support department for review.

Once we have the above back we will check them for any errors and then send them over to our processing department. It then takes them 1-5 business days to complete KYC Compliance (Know Your Customer).

Once completed you will be asked to set yourself up with a Prepaid MasterCard account. This account is NOT setup for you but full details of how to create the account will be sent over to you once all the paperwork is dealt with and has been checked for KYC.

Once you have your own account setup, our accounts department will deposit the grant funds onto your prepaid account. You will then be required to upload your contribution to the account and use the Prepaid MasterCard provided for all your purchases so that they can be monitored, making sure the funds are being used for business purposes.

Please read carefully through the acceptance forms, complete and return to us by email. You will then receive details of how to create your Prepaid MasterCard account shortly after KYC is completed.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call or email and we will do our best to help.

When calling our office please ask for Oliver Robson as he is one of our Strategic Development and Applications Managers. He will be the one dealing with all aspects of your acceptance and funding.

However we have also listed some of the more common questions below:

1) When do I receive the funding?

– As soon as you return your acceptance forms and ID/Address Proof you will then need to create your Prepaid MasterCard account. Once you have your Prepaid MasterCard account it should only take between 1-3 working days to receive the funding.

2) How and when do I create my Prepaid MasterCard account?

Details of how to create your MasterCard account will be provided once we receive the attached acceptance forms, ID and address proof back from you and have completed KYC compliance.

3) How do I receive the funding?

– We will email you instructions on how to set up your Prepaid MasterCard account once the above has been completed. We will then load the grant funding that has been awarded to you onto your MasterCard account. You will need to use this account to make all of your purchases so that they are kept separate from other business transactions.

4) When do I make my contribution?

– Once you receive confirmation from your Prepaid MasterCard account that the grant funds have been deposited onto your account.  You will then be required to load your contribution onto the card before you start spending the funds. This is very easy and can be done by calling Prepaid MasterCard who the account is held with.

5) Who are MasterCard Financing UK LP?

– They are the approved MasterCard retailer that sets up the cards and accounts, not just for us but for thousands of businesses nationwide. We have chosen to use them as they are one of the leading providers of Business and Prepaid MasterCard expense accounts.

6) Why do I have to use that account?

– This is so that your pruchases are kept separate to your other income and outgoing expenses. This means you do not have to send in proof of each purchase and limits the man hours required to monitor how you use the grant funds. Using your own account would cause complications as we would have to distinguish between your own transactions and those for the grant.

7) Do Easy Finance or anybody else have access to the MasterCard account?

– No we have no access whatsoever. You set the account up yourself and will choose all of your own security information, you simply have to give them permission to email statements over to us as a third party. You will be able to call Prepaid MasterCard and confirm all of this with them prior to opening up your account.

I hope this helps with any questions you may have and if you have any questions that are not on this list please feel free to ask.

Regards,

Gordon Forester
Applications Manager & Acceptance Coordinator
Easy Finance (Telereal Secured Finance PLC)