Alleged ACS Law illegal file-sharing letters likely to be a con

The name of controversial law firm ACS Law may be being used as part of a scam.

Despite ACS Law having ceased practising earlier this year, a company using this name has been sending letters to people in Greece alleging that they have been engaged in illegal file sharing and demanding £1,665 to stop court proceedings.

Ralli Solicitors, which was alerted to the problem and is now advising clients in the country, warned this may be a scam.

Michael Forrester of Ralli said it was "unclear how the firm ACS Law is continuing to operate, despite purporting to close earlier this year and the sole principal recently being made bankrupt. We have advised clients that we may be dealing with an imposter."

We have however found out that if any cheques are sent, they may not reach the people behind these letters anyway.

Computeractive has discovered that the address that people are being asked to send the cheques to at 18 Hanover Square in London, were managed offices. What is odd though, is why the address, is being used as the building no longer exists. We contacted Avanta Managed Offices, the company that ran these managed offices to ask it if ACS Law was still a client.

The company told us that the law firm had been at one point, but not any longer, and that 18 Hanover Square "had been knocked down" to make way for Cross Rail. We asked if it was forwarding any mail to ACS Law and the company said that any mail for the law firm was returned to sender.

A law firm with a similar name and address, Ashby Cohen Solicitors Ltd based in Hanover Street, told us that it had in the past received mail for ACS Law. It said any mail that was addressed to ACS Law was always returned to sender. We are now trying to find out if any mail to 18 Hanover Square is being redirected by Royal Mail.

The two letters Computeractive has seen were sent in June and claim that ACS Law is working for client Digi Protect Ltd.

"We act as solicitors for Digit Protect (UK) Ltd, the owners of various film and music rights. Our client has retained forensic computer analysts to search for and identify internet addresses from which their copyright works are being made available on so called "peer to peer" programs (in your case Bittorent) so that they may be downloaded by third parties without our client's consent or licence," the letters state.

They then go on to quote the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and threaten that if the recipient of the letter does not send a cheque for £1,665, the matter will be taken to court.

"You may know that in civil proceedings in this country, the loser not only has to bear it's [sic] own costs, but also the costs of the winning party," the letters warn.