A Hampshire couple were conned out of almost £10,000 by shysters pretending to be from TV Licensing.
They clearly didn't read our earlier warnings on this subject.
Jerry Tack, 65, received an email purporting to be from TV Licensing asking him to renew his TV licence.
Without giving it a second thought (which is probably where he went wrong) he clicked a link in the official-looking email and entered his payment details online.
A couple of days later Jerry received a phone call purportedly from Nationwide, which the couple bank with.
The voice on the line warned that Nationwide had detected suspicious account activity. It asked Jerry to transfer the balance of each of the couple's accounts to a new "safe" account. In a remarkable feat of naivety Jerry, clearly unfamiliar with bank security measures, followed the scammer's instructions and transferred across £9,900.
A couple of hours later Jerry realised his mistake and contacted Nationwide, but it was too late. As Jerry had authorised the payments to the scammer Nationwide refused to reimburse the £9,900.
A Nationwide spokesman said: "We're very sorry that our member has been a victim of this cruel scam.
"Unfortunately, despite warnings generated by our systems, the member gave away details to the fraudster and originated all of the transactions into the third-party account."
Over the last couple of months there has been a sharp increase in the number of hoax TV Licensing emails in circulation. These emails, which often look very convincing, attempt to deceive recipients into disclosing sensitive personal and financial information - a process known as phishing.
A TV Licensing spokeswoman said: "TV Licensing will never email customers, unprompted, to ask for bank details, personal information or tell you that you may be entitled to a refund."
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4 comments:
I've had several emails from "TVL" offering a refund. Very convincing - except "TVL" and "refund" don't go together in my mind!
The first big sign its a scam is the incorrect spelling of 'TV licence' just below the logo in the image.
The second big sign its a scam is if it is actually from TV Licensing ;-)
The upside of this tale is that the publicity that it has generated will cause a few more people to view anything and anyone claiming to from TVL with suspicion.
It will make their 'job' harder.
Simple solution - get rid of the TV Licensing system
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