Beware the Boom in TV Licensing Scammers

The recently changing goalposts of the over-75 TV licence means that for the first time millions of pensioners are having to purchase their own TV licences.

Many of those will be dealing with TV Licensing online. For the first time they will be visiting the TV Licensing website and receiving correspondence from TV Licensing in their email inboxes.

Without wishing to sound unnecessarily ageist or patronising, it is perhaps a fair comment that some of these over-75s are less savvy when it comes to recognising scam emails purportedly sent by TV Licensing.

Our reader Chris has very kindly sent us two recent examples of scam emails he has received. He is not a TV licence holder, so does not receive legitimate email correspondence from TV Licensing.

We have copied the emails below and, as a little test, would invite readers to view each one in turn and pick out the tell tale signs that they are not really from TV Licensing.

At first glance the first email looks quite convincing. It is laid out in the manner you'd expect from TV Licensing and, notwithstanding the fact they haven't loaded in this screenshot, contains all the correct images and corporate branding.

You can tell it is a scam email from the following details:

• The sent from email address is not an official TV Licensing email address. You have to be careful here, because it is very easy for scammers to spoof an email address nowadays so that it appears to be genuine.
• The value of the TV licence fee is incorrectly stated. At the time of writing a TV licence costs £157.50 and not £154.50 as stated on this email.
• The licence number is incorrectly stated. A genuine TV licence number has 10 digits, although only boffins like us would actually know that! In the case of a renewing TV licence holder, it is a straightforward task to confirm that the licence number stated in the email actually matches the licence number of their current licence. If it does not, then it's definitely a scam.

The second email also looks quite convincing, although far less so than the first.

You can tell it is a scam email from the following details:

• The sent from email address is not an official TV Licensing email address. You have to be careful here, because it is very easy for scammers to spoof an email address nowadays so that it appears to be genuine.
• It lacks the usual corporate branding (e.g. logos, fonts, images) you'd expect from TV Licensing.
• It contains typographical errors. Useless as the genuine TV Licensing are, even they can manage to spell the word "licence" correctly; they would never forget that Direct Debit, as a proper noun, has capital letters; they would never send an email in the year 2020 that finished with a copyright statement dated 2019.

In addition to these points, remember that scam TV Licensing emails often try to fluster the recipient into acting quickly and without thought. They invite them to click on links within the body of the email, which direct them to unscrupulous websites that will harvest their personal information for criminal purposes.

If you ever receive an email purportedly from TV Licensing please read it carefully and pause for thought. Do not act in haste and compromise your personal information as a result.

If you are in any doubt at all about the legitimacy of an email purportedly from TV Licensing then please ask a trusted friend or relative for their opinion, or contact TV Licensing directly using the details published on its official website.

It is always safer to visit the TV Licensing website by typing its address directly into your browser, rather than clicking on links in the body of emails.

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