Edmiston wish to raise awareness of a possible UK visa scam that was discovered recently. The group of scammers using a variety of apparent pseudonyms such as Morris Winter, Capt. Jones William and Capt. Pierre Elliot start with false job adverts in emails naming unsuspecting companies, "The Edmiston Hotel" amongst them.
Unfortunately it doesn’t just stop there. It has been reported to us that once they attract someone’s attention they even go as far as issuing bogus appointment letters. After that, they get down to what they are really after. Charging up to £900 for arranging a UK visa. For a job that doesn’t exist.
Any phone numbers given are premium rate UK numbers; expensive but very hard to trace and therefore quite commonly used by scammers.
Fortunately, many people have seen this as a scam and have reported it to us, likewise to other companies similarly affected. We wish to raise the issue to the yachting industry as a whole to hopefully ensure no-one gets convinced to hand over any money or personal details. We recommend crew check out employment opportunities thoroughly.
Neither Edmiston nor any of its subsidiaries are associated with this activity and consider it to be deliberate misuse of the name and reputation of Edmiston. Our solicitors have issued a cease-and-desist letter to this effect. We have also petitioned Google and other websites to remove these references but we understand these links are now widespread.