Current Scams...

[Thirsty Relic 210]

Been told about another one by a neighbour - claiming to by the Office for National Statistics, and it sounds a good one to me.

Arriving in an official-looking brown envelope saying "On Her Majesty's Service", it wants "The Resident" to fill in an on-line questionnaire on work, employment etc to get a £25 voucher.

Two questions alerted me:

1. if its official, how come they don't know the name of the resident?
2. why is the Government giving £25 to everyone filling it in, especially when we are only months away from the 2021 National Census, that asks for this type of info for free?

As the neighbour isn't going to fill it in, we'll not know what the questions are of course, but I think we can guess the type of information the scammers want!  As it's done online, you'd start off by giving an email address ...

[whiteowl 54]

30 minutes ago, Thirsty Relic said:

Been told about another one by a neighbour - claiming to by the Office for National Statistics, and it sounds a good one to me.

Arriving in an official-looking brown envelope saying "On Her Majesty's Service", it wants "The Resident" to fill in an on-line questionnaire on work, employment etc to get a £25 voucher.

Two questions alerted me:

1. if its official, how come they don't know the name of the resident?
2. why is the Government giving £25 to everyone filling it in, especially when we are only months away from the 2021 National Census, that asks for this type of info for free?

As the neighbour isn't going to fill it in, we'll not know what the questions are of course, but I think we can guess the type of information the scammers want!  As it's done online, you'd start off by giving an email address ...

I had a letter marked "On Her Majesty's Service" addressed to the resident that was a letter from the Office for National Statistics in conjunction with Oxford University. It came in an A4 white envelope though.

 

It was about random COVID sampling. There was no online bit, I had to ring up to participate - with a £50 voucher for the first test done and £25 for subsequent ones. Have had 2 COVID tests so far with a lady coming this afternoon with the 3rd. Received the £50 voucher so far that came in handy as I turned it into a £50 Amazon voucher in time for the Prime days they had last week.

 

They did ask questions about employment status, health etc, but in a quite generic way, not wanting to know specifics. I'd suggest your neighbours is probably not a scam but you can never be too sure especially with an online section.

[horribleblob 212]

I received one today I've not seen before (sent from someone using the Belgian service provider Voo.be) :

 

---------------------------------

Update your DVLA profile

 

DVLA routine check has found some irregularities in your current profile, which indicates that the information given is no longer accurate or up to date. You are required to update your profile to its latest form to avoid termination of your monitoring [sic] license.

 

[BIG, ORANGE "UPDATE" BUTTON]

 

You must use your valid and official information to complete this form. Using any nicknames or short-addresses can lead to rejection of this update. If you will not update your profile, your account will be suspended.

---------------------------------

 

Some of these scams are so obvious.

[mikeG 16]

Received email recently supposedly from DVLA telling me my car was untaxed and I would be fined £290 if I drove it before paying for tax. I was invited to 'click here to pay'.

Clicked the delete button as car is taxed till end of year and the email address was dodgy.

[cressida 1,554]

Another parcel from China which I haven't ordered and a letter from Customs asking me to pay charges of £29.56 to receive it -  I'm not going to pay this as I believe they send stuff out as a way of scamming people.

 

What would you do?  

[RollingJ 2,002]

5 minutes ago, cressida said:

Another parcel from China which I haven't ordered and a letter from Customs asking me to pay charges of £29.56 to receive it -  I'm not going to pay this as I believe they send stuff out as a way of scamming people.

 

What would you do?  

Ignore it, @cressida - as you say it is a pure scam.

[cressida 1,554]

Thank you,  I did find out that Parcelforce hold the goods for three weeks and then send it back

[pintor 32]

On 23/10/2020 at 11:30, mikeG said:

Received email recently supposedly from DVLA telling me my car was untaxed and I would be fined £290 if I drove it before paying for tax. I was invited to 'click here to pay'.

Clicked the delete button as car is taxed till end of year and the email address was dodgy.

I had a dvla one today, picture of someone top left, wanting me to pay £480, @mail address has' ana' something in it, marked it as phishing 

[catmiss 12]

On 28/07/2020 at 00:36, catmiss said:

Had a frightening call on my mobile this afternoon from a Liverpool number supposedly from HMRC saying I was under investigation for tax fraud and if I didn’t press 1 a warrant for my arrest would be issued immediately. Although I terminated the call I was concerned but 101 assured me this was a scam call they were aware of

SYP website now warning of this scam  as is my on-line banking so I think some people have succumbed to this fraud 

[Jeffrey Shaw 90]

Most large companies offer their own 'report spam/phishing in our name' e-mail addresses:

e.g .the one for HM Land Registry is at

reportafraud@landregistry.gov.uk

and the one for HSBC is at

phishing@hsbc.com

 

Two generic ones are City of London Police at

NFIBPhishing@city-of-london.pnn.police.uk

 

and HMG itself at

report@phishing.gov.uk

Edited November 4, 2020 by Jeffrey Shaw

[Baron99 779]

Watch out for dodgy emails, supposedly from Royal Mail?  Don't respond to it & give account details. 

 

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/1360716/royal-mail-scam-parcel-delivery-warning-uk/amp#aoh=16055582852790&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s

[catmiss 12]

Has anyone else had a lot of ‘Tesco’ or ‘Amazon’ reward emails? They all have an Illinois address to write to to if you want to withdraw.