Council’s scam email warning

WARRINGTON Trading Standards are warning residents to be on their guard when accessing their emails and clicking on to adverts on social media pages.
As consumers do more shopping online and provide their personal details over the internet, officers have seen an increase in the number of reported scams from fake emails and website.
These can range from fakes claims about tax rebates, to emails claiming to be from your bank through to website claims to check your passport application or renew your road tax. The scammers are all aiming for the same thing – to con you in to providing your banking details including things like your pin number or card security number so they can fraudulently withdraw money out of your account.
Scam emails normally have a website link within them which goes directly to the fraudster copycat website, this looks almost identical to the genuine website.
It’s here that consumers are convinced to provide personal details; pay for services they don’t receive or even disclose their full banking details.
Officers are advising residents that they should not respond to any emails claiming to be from their bank that asks for them to confirm any personal information – banks simply do not do this, and it will be a scam email. Claims about tax rebates are not sent out by email from HMRC so do not click the link within the email as it is a scam.
Peter Astley, assistant director for regulation and public protection explained: “Scammers send emails from addresses which don’t match the organisation it claims to have come from or it will have originated from free web mail address. So pay particular attention to this.  Also the email will be address using a non-specific greeting like ‘dear
Customer’ and frequently if the scam originates from abroad the email will contain spelling and grammatical errors”.
Mr Astley added: “We have seen an increasing number of scams reported where adverts appearing on social media sites have linked back to fraudulent websites or scam advert for ‘free samples’. Consumers have been reporting to us that they haven’t received goods, they have been charged high postal charges or been tied in to contract for goods they did not want”.
Cllr Judith Guthrie, the council’s lead member for environment and public protection said: “Shopping online can be a great convenience but we need to stay vigilant and take care with what we’re buying, who we’re buying from as well as how to pay for purchases.
“Always question if it is too good to be true, do your due diligence to check the authenticity of the site or product and make sure you use secure and protected methods of payment.
“I can understand how people are misled by some of these emails as they look very convincing but we must report suspicious email and websites to Action Fraud or Trading Standards”.