A few days ago we heard the news that the UK economy had shrunk for the second consecutive quarter, indicating the nation is again in recession.
With the cost of living already very high, it perhaps comes as little surprise that cyber ne'er do wells are out in force trying to capitalise on other people's misery.
Over the last couple of months there has been a boom in scam emails purportedly coming from TV Licensing. These emails typically inform the recipient that their TV licence has expired and warns them that immediate action is required to avoid prosecution. It urges them to buy a new licence as a matter of urgency. If the recipient clicks-through on the links in the email they will be directed to a fake payment page, which collects their payment details for criminal purposes.
Scammers often portray a false sense of urgency in their emails, as they want to scare a person into making an irrational decision. It is an unfortunate fact that legitimate TV Licensing emails use exactly the same, scammeristic tone in order to brow beat people into buying a TV licence. However, there are a few other tell tale signs that should help people identify a real TV Licensing email from a fake one.
If you are in any doubt at all that an email is from TV Licensing, then you should visit the official TV Licensing website for further information. Do this by typing the URL directly into your web browser. Do not click on any links in the body of the suspect email.
Tell tale signs of a scam TV Licensing email:
- A scam email will usually address the recipient in a generic way like "Dear Customer", whereas a legitimate TV Licensing email will usually address the recipient by their correct name and title.
- The sent from address may not be an official TV Licensing email address. You have to be careful here, as nowadays it is very easy for scammers to spoof an email address so that it appears genuine.
- The current value of the TV licence fee might be incorrectly stated. You should compare that value against that given on the official TV Licensing website.
- TV Licensing NEVER offers any sort of discount on a standard TV licence. Legally, TV Licensing is not in a position to do that. TV Licensing is also in the business of extracting money from people. It is absolutely loathe to give money back.
- A TV licence ALWAYS expires on the last day of the month. If an email indicates any other expiry date, then it is definitely a scam.
- A TV licence number ALWAYS contains ten numerical digits. A TV licence number NEVER contains letters. If an email indicates any other TV licence number format, then it is definitely a scam.
- Any TV licence number stated should ALWAYS correspond to that of your previous TV licence (if expired).
- A scam email may lack the usual corporate branding you would associate with TV Licensing.
- A scam email may contain typographical errors. TV Licensing, for all its many faults, usually gets its spellings correct. TV Licensing would always spell the word "licence" correctly; it would never forget that Direct Debit, as a proper noun, has capital letters; it would never send an email in the year 2024 that finished with a copyright statement dated 2020.
I will conclude by referring back to the statement I bolded earlier. If there is any doubt at all, close the suspect email and visit the TV Licensing website directly.
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