Switzerland’s federal cybersecurity agency is warning the public about a wave of fraudulent invoices linked to an alleged service called SwissNovaChat, with a legitimate Swiss debt-collection firm now pursuing hundreds of people who say they never signed up.
SwissNovaChat and a related site, SwissNovaCare, are web portals that present themselves as AI-powered services, one marketed as a writing assistant, the other described in some reports as an “intimacy” or health-advice chatbot. Behind both sites is a company called Margot Brands Ltd, registered in Hong Kong, according to the portals’ own legal notices.
The business model is simple: the operators send invoices and payment demands to people for supposed subscriptions that were never actually purchased. Recipients typically have no memory of visiting either site, let alone signing up for a paid plan.
To lend the scheme credibility and legal weight, Margot Brands hired a real, registered Swiss debt-collection company, Letterdata GmbH, based in Altendorf in the canton of Schwyz, to chase the money. Letterdata sends formal-looking demand letters and reminders claiming amounts of roughly CHF 800 to 900 — sometimes citing invented fees such as a “dossier fee” or “address verification fee” — and warns that costs will rise if the recipient doesn’t pay within about ten days. Some letters reportedly include a deceptive instalment-payment form that, if signed, would constitute a legally binding acknowledgement of debt under Swiss debt-enforcement law (Article 82 SchKG).
Margot Brands falsely listed the accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as its official Swiss legal representative. PwC Switzerland has publicly denied any connection to the company or its websites, calling the sites “fraudulent” and stating it has taken legal action to have the false reference removed and the sites taken down.
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SwissNovaChat Debt Collection Scam: Timeline of the warnings
BACS, the Federal Office for Cybersecurity, first flagged the two websites publicly on 6 April 2026, warning that their business model involved sending invoices for subscriptions that didn’t exist. By July 2026, Swiss consumer-affairs media reported that the scheme had escalated: Letterdata had begun issuing formal collection demands of CHF 500 to 800-plus.
On August 18, BACS issued an updated notice — the one at the center of this story — confirming it was still “receiving numerous reports” tied to Letterdata’s collection activity, and sharpening its advice: rather than simply ignoring the letters, recipients should now formally dispute the claim in writing and preserve all correspondence, since the demands were coming through a real, Swiss-based collection agency.
What BACS advises
The agency’s guidance is direct:
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Do not pay if you did not knowingly use SwissNovaChat or SwissNovaCare.
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Dispute the claim in writing, ideally by registered letter, to the debt-collection agency.
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Do not click any links in emails or letters referencing the scheme.
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Keep all correspondence — invoices, reminders, and any letters — in case the matter escalates further.
Letterdata’s position
Letterdata’s managing director, René Weber, said that as a collection agency it is not obligated to verify the validity of every individual contract it is asked to pursue. He said the client (Margot Brands) had provided what he described as credible evidence that consumers had to give consent multiple times before a contract became binding, and argued that ultimately a court would need to decide whether a valid contract existed.
Why It Matters?
Both BACS and consumer-protection groups have effectively characterized the scheme as an intimidation tactic that exploits the appearance of a legitimate Swiss collection process to pressure people into paying for services they never used. Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) says it can file a complaint for violating the Unfair Competition Act, but that doing so requires a sufficient volume of reports from affected consumers — underscoring why authorities are urging people to formally report and dispute the claims rather than pay quietly or simply discard the letters.
