A nasty new phishing scam?

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A nasty new phishing scam?

Postby vannin » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:22 am

I was taken aback this week to receive an email about my TV license, which I had consigned to the past for nearly two years. Shall be 77 next month, and the fee stopped at 75, like everybody else's.

This said it was due and if not paid, would expire at midnight 28th (last night)

I then looked at the sender email address which partially had very unlikely wording like 'mizchinke'. So I was just very annoyed especially as I might not have kept the final paperwork as proof, or it needs searching.

To make sure, I switched on first thing this morning, and, of course, still have a TV service. If I was hacked, I am strong enough to dismiss it - eventually - but many of our age group on their own could be really disturbed. Not sure where to notify the real licensing people as 'Contact us' on documents means nothing.

I have reported it to the FCA
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Re: A nasty new phishing scam?

Postby Andere Richtingen » Fri Mar 01, 2019 12:26 pm

This one has been around for a year or two, Vannin. Some, like yours, have obvious errors but both LH and I have received others which might fool the unwary, especially if they were busy and harassed and thought they might have overlooked payment. However, the fact is, TV Licensing DON'T work this way. They send letters through the post, addressed to the Occupier. If you ignore them, they send real people to your door to ask questions. I know. I have experienced it when we were living in two houses and only one of them had a licence!

One of my mailboxes got hacked some time ago and is still receiving occasional spam. This morning, I received a doozie - it purported to come from the provider, mail.com, and was threatening to close all its "older" email accounts unless the user clicked on a link to "update your personal details".

Yeah, right! Aside from the fact that mail.com always address me by name and this didn't, it was full of spelling and syntax errors; originated from some unlikely and anonymised email address; the company "letterhead" was all wrong! At the very least,clicking the link would have told the spammers that this is a "live" address and worthwhile selling on for further spamming/phishing. At worst, the gullible could end up filling in lots of personal/financial information about themselves and get taken to the cleaners.

What concerns me most about this one is that mail.com's own spam filter didn't pick it up. It's usually pretty efficient at weeding out this sort of garbage.
My rule is to CHECK EVERYTHING. if in doubt, bin it and DON'T CLICK ANYTHING!! If it's genuine, the sender will get in touch some other way.
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