Britain’s Financial Services Authority reveals that the typical boiler room victim loses £20,000.

The FSA surveyed callers to its consumer contact centre who had reported being targeted by boiler rooms — overseas operations that use high-pressure selling techniques to persuade U.K. investors to purchase shares. The survey was conducted to demonstrate how boiler rooms operate, as part of the FSA’s campaign to raise awareness of the scam.

“Boiler rooms can be lucrative operations that fraudulently earn serious money. £20,000 is a shocking sum and far more than most people can afford to lose,” said Jonathan Phelan, head of retail enforcement at the FSA. “Sadly, victims are unlikely to see their money again because their shares will have been overpriced and almost impossible to sell. Boiler rooms are not authorized by the FSA, and are based abroad outside our reach, so victims are not protected by the financial services compensation and complaints schemes. Our strongest tool is to make people aware of the scam.”

The FSA reported that 58% of respondents had fallen victim to the scam by purchasing worthless shares. Of the victims, 13% had been conned by more than one boiler room while three victims each reported losses of over £100,000.

The survey found that boiler rooms tend to prey on older people, the FSA revealed. Of those who had fallen victim to boiler rooms, 38% were aged over 60 while 26% of victims were 51-60 years old. The majority of victims were male (81%) and most were experienced investors with 41% of victims saying they had been investing for over 11 years.

Many respondents reported that the boiler room repeatedly called them to encourage them to invest, the FSA added. It found that 15% of victims were persuaded to purchase shares during their first call, but 49% of victims were called four or more times before they succumbed. Regardless of whether they purchased shares or not, 63% of respondents reported that they were pursued by the boiler room for at least one month and almost a quarter (23%) said they were receiving calls from the same boiler room for more than six months.

“Boiler room salesmen won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. They will constantly call a target, trying to build a relationship and get their confidence. They will appear knowledgeable and highly professional but they are only interested in taking your money,” Phelan added.

Many of the respondents (57%) reported that they were first contacted by the boiler room out of the blue on the telephone. Boiler rooms may also use a marketing firm to contact targets on their behalf according to 35% of respondents, the FSA noted.

The people behind boiler rooms often move from operation to operation taking lists of potential targets with them, it said, and 26% of respondents reported that they had been approached by four or more different boiler rooms.

Although boiler rooms do not necessarily operate from where they say, the most common countries that boiler rooms claimed to operate from were Spain (29%), the US (20%) and Switzerland (20%), the FSA noted. Anecdotal evidence also suggested that Eastern European countries were popular locations for boiler rooms, it said.