The Charity Commission has warned that fraudsters are targeting charities by sending letters purporting to be from the regulator. 

The commission said in a statement that the letters typically request action to be taken such as removing a trustee or chief executive from their position, releasing funds as part of a grant or supplying documents such as a passport or utility bill. 

They could pretend to come from “the commission”, its chief executive or its directors, the regulator said. 

The commission said it had reported the incidents to Action Fraud and would continue to monitor the situation.

It said it would usually contact charities by email and would only send a letter if it did not have an up-to-date email address. 

It rarely addresses letters generically and never writes letters or emails of certification on behalf of UK charities regarding tax exemption or any other matters, the regulator said. 

It also said it never asked for banking information or issued requests to authenticate an account online by supplying personal identity documents.

The regulator said that in the rare circumstance that it did send a charity a letter in the post, it would be franked rather than stamped and usually have a case number or references 

“It is unlikely that any serious allegations against individuals would be detailed in a letter, or that we would name individuals before there was clear evidence of wrongdoing,” the commission said. 

“Matters to do with casework or investigation would normally come from a caseworker or a team at the commission.” 

The regulator said if a charity was in any doubt over the veracity of a letter it could contact the commission to check. 

It said declined to give further information in areas such as the number of charities that had received fraudulent letters or if any had fallen foul of the scam.