With new hires in London, Fidelity Investments [profile] is winning attention for its expansion in the United Kingdom. But recently it may have gotton a little more attention than it would have wanted thanks to would-be email scammers. Last week a spam email (not one from Fidelity) made the rounds in which someone claiming to be named "Thomas Richard" says they are a fund manager with the UK division of Fidelty Investments.

Needless to say, the email did not originate with Fidelity. The scam also highlights how simple it is for fraudsters to attempt to hijack a mutual fund firm's brand for their own ends.

"Richard" claims in the spam email that he had made a "SECRET CODE INVESTMENT" on behalf of none other than late Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi. The email further claims the investment is for a total of 15,745,000,000 GBP, and that no one besides "Richard" and Gaddafi knew about the investment.

The email is not just informative, though -- it seems to be looking for a business partner.

"Now that President Muammar Gaddafi is DEAD, I need a reliable and trustworthy person with whom I can work this deal out so that we can claim the funds as mentioned above," the email reads.

Fidelity has standard advice to clients and others who receive a communication such as this,

"We point out and say an email like this with grammatical errors and bizarre claims is obviously some kind of scam," said Fidelity spokesman Mike Shamrell. "They should not respond to it or click any link." 

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