Vehi cle Tax Scam

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Beware a new one (new to me anyway):

Just received an e-mail purporting to be an "Automatic Confirmation" from DVLA of my car tax having expired (it hasn't!).

Momentarily alarmed, I examined the source, and this showed a very strange sending address for a start.

Further, at the foot of the main message were a long screed about Covid precautions then a length e-mail exchange about studio casting!

'

What to do?

I have no confidence in ActionFraud. I tried reporting fraudulent e-mails several years ago but found their web-site useless: very clumsy and awkward to use, assuming set situations of which none were relevant, and having no method for forwarding e-posts for analysis.

I may see if DVLA has any ready contact methods. Probably not – probably hidden behind either an all-day 'phone queue, or a web-site designed by people who don't use it..

Otherwise of course, block and delete.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

I had this a couple of weeks ago, two things immediately struck me, one the email address was an old business email with no vehicle connection and the other was my road tax renews a lot later in the year. Most of these scams fall down early if people just stop and think.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 27/03/2021 21:43:56:

………………………………..

What to do?

I have no confidence in ActionFraud. I tried reporting fraudulent e-mails several years ago but found their web-site useless: very clumsy and awkward to use, assuming set situations of which none were relevant, and having no method for forwarding e-posts for analysis.

I may see if DVLA has any ready contact methods. Probably not – probably hidden behind either an all-day 'phone queue, or a web-site designed by people who don't use it..

……………………….

Here you go, essentially just forward the mail as in this document to report@phishing.gov.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dvla-releases-latest-scam-images-to-help-keep-motorists-safe-online#:~:text=To%20report%20suspected%20email%20fraud,if%20found%20to%20be%20malicious.

Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I reported mine at 18:12 … and received an instant acknowledgement, including this note:

[quote]

As of 28th February 2021, we have received more than 5,000,000such reports, allowing us to remove more than 36,000 scams and take down 71,000 malicious URLs.

[/quote]

MichaelG.

.

P.S. are they all coming from this address in Belgium: norq@telenet.be

… or are there multiple ‘spam-bots’ in action ?

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 28/03/2021 00:31:20:…

As of 28th February 2021, we have received more than 5,000,000such reports, allowing us to remove more than 36,000 scams and take down 71,000 malicious URLs.

MichaelG.

..That's what they want you to think….

As you know it's easy to spoof the send address, email adress lists are widely available on the dark web, sending emails is cheap and the evildoers only need a tiny percentage of folk to fall into a trap to make it pay/

The cleverest scam we almost fell for was an official looking letter from Data Protection Agency Agency reminding us to pay our annual fee and send them the money to sort it. The real letter arrived the next day. The con one was 'legal' in the sense that they paid the correct fee for the mug but had added a service charge for their work in so doing. Of course it meant that the Data Protection Agency itself was being hacked for the renewal details of all registered businesses.

pgk

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

I haven't had this particular scam email yet, and I don't know if this happens for everybody and every type of vehicle, but DVLA always sends us a reminder in the post when the road tax is due on both mine and my wife's car with a reference number to pay online.

My problem is that the wife always passes hers on to me!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by pgk pgk on 28/03/2021 06:17:50:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 28/03/2021 00:31:20:…

As of 28th February 2021, we have received more than 5,000,000such reports, allowing us to remove more than 36,000 scams and take down 71,000 malicious URLs.

MichaelG.

..That's what they want you to think….

As you know it's easy to spoof the send address, email adress lists are widely available on the dark web, sending emails is cheap and the evildoers only need a tiny percentage of folk to fall into a trap to make it pay/

[…]

.

I thought I was paranoid … but you get the prize

The automated ‘acknowledgement’ came immediately after I forwarded the spoof eMail to noreply@phishing.gov.uk

… which address I had, of course, typed-in manually !

Are you suggesting that the scammers have hi-jacked ncsc and intercepted my eMail ?

MichaelG.

.

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/section/information-for/individuals-families

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 28/03/2021 08:34:24

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 28/03/2021 08:33:47:

Are you suggesting that the scammers have hi-jacked ncsc and intercepted my eMail ?

That thought hadn't entered my mind – t'would need some clever work reprogging the nearby nodes..
No, I was insinuating that the numbers of take-downs claimed may bear no reality but justify funding some high salaries, 'Course if the nodes run on Huawei hardware…..

pgk

[Henry BrownParticipant @henrybrown95529]

Everyone must know this but maybe worth repeating! If the curser is held over the line in the left hand column that says where the mail has come from it will show you the address. If its a scam they are usually clearly form an unreliable source.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Henry Brown on 28/03/2021 11:04:40:

Everyone must know this but maybe worth repeating! If the curser is held over the line in the left hand column that says where the mail has come from it will show you the address. If its a scam they are usually clearly form an unreliable source.

.

Which takes me back to my question from yesterday :

are they all coming from this address in Belgium: norq@telenet.be

… or are there multiple ‘spam-bots’ in action ?

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 28/03/2021 08:33:47:

[…]

The automated ‘acknowledgement’ came immediately after I forwarded the spoof eMail to noreply@phishing.gov.uk

… which address I had, of course, typed-in manually !

[…]

.

Oops ! … Clarification required !

The response came from < noreply@phishing.gov.uk >

… but, of course, I had forwarded the spoof eMail to < report@phishing.gov.uk >

MichaelG.

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

Get on the Gov DVLA site you will see the up to date things regarding your vehicle in my case your driving licence details.

One pain in the arse with DVLA and you want to complain on their website if your driving licence expires your not recognised and cant complain or thank them for their service

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Windy on 28/03/2021 12:04:28:

Get on the Gov DVLA site …

Make sure it is the real one!

Last time I did it for real, the genuine DVLA was third in the list of Google results. The top two were both firms charging a service fee for forwarding applications, which is entirely unnecessary. Whether this 'service' is legal or not is a grey area, but I see Google, Bing, and DuckduckGo have removed them at the moment.

It's an on-going battle because the firms re-register and pop up again under a new name: Google, and others, have been repeatedly criticised as being far too slow to remove them. Not just DVLA, the same trick is applied to other government websites offering form-filling. The giveaway is a naughty website's https: address doesn't end .gov.uk

Dave

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

If a charge is involved don't use

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I must admit it did alarm me for a few moments, until I spotted the very strange sending address. I'd still looked in my folder of car documents to be sure though!

I tried to open the DVLA site but I must have made a mistake because I ended up going through the main gov.uk site and bogging down in a maze of options offering me nothing directly useful. It seems a common tendency for many official or commercial sites to offer you only rigidly-set questions, to avoid answering any other enquiries.

It was a poor spoof though (luckily) because as well as the weird address it carried on into an e-post exchange involving what appeared to be a TV company!

'

I recall the Source routing of one dodgy message, I forget about what, showing it had been stepped through about 3 intervening addresses including that for a donkey sanctuary, but with the originator's ending with what I think was the abbreviation for an African country.

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

Ways to spot a scam email.

It will be a general text that can be sent to anyone without raising questions of why have they sent me this obviously wrongly addressed email.

It will not include your name or address or vehicle details or tax details or your sex (eg Mr or Mrs) or postcode or dates or the last two digits of a bank account they are referring to or anything else that makes it a personal email specifically aimed at you.

Anything that is not explicit in who they are addressing to can be ignored even if it is from the DVLA, police, HMRC or any other organisation. It is no different to an advertising flyer sent to "the occupier" at a property. It's a good reason to have an email that does not have both your first and last name for the scammer to pick out.

Martin C

[colin wilkinsonParticipant @colinwilkinson75381]

Just had an email advising me that my recent payment had failed due to insufficient funds in my account. As I had taxed a bike the other day I thought it was strange as there is plenty of money in the account but mainly as it is a historic vehicle the amount is zero!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Michael –

Usually I go further than examining the address line directly, by interrogating the Source.

Most of the result is intelligible only to a programmer, which I am not, but the more self-explanatory parts sometimes shows intermediate, high-jacked addresses, occasionally a clue to country of origin, and depending perhaps on message type, the anti-virus software's reaction to it.

On the last point, a lot seem to come through "clean", suggesting perhaps that the included link has been designed to appear innocent or to not attack your computer and data – at least not until you operate it

The problem was discussed on the 1pm news programme today, and the security professional they interviewed said, yes the Police do work hard on cyber-crime, often with their colleagues overseas; but the sources are often in countries whose own police can't do anything about it. (Or won't?)

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 02/04/2021 21:14:26:

Michael –

Usually I go further than examining the address line directly, by interrogating the Source.

[…]

.

Sorry, Nigel … I’m being a little dim tonight

Why is that a response to me ?

MichaelG.

[Stuart Munro 1Participant @stuartmunro1]

Great that we all focus on how to spot these scams but there is another worrying aspect to this. As some people get older they become less able to cope with the worry such scams can induce; a neighbour who is even older than me spent a couple of days not seeing anyone due to covid restrictions then told me (carefully distanced at his front door) of an 'Amazon renewal' scam that had given him sleepless nights.

I find this aspect particularly distasteful. but how do we stop it?

Stuart

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

.

You make an excellent point, Stuart … and I only wish that I had the answer.

The perpetrators are the scum of the earth, and appear to be without any morals.

The damage done to their victims [whether actually scammed, or collaterally damaged] remains unseen, and totally irrelevant to them.

I wait in vain for appropriate justice to be meted out.

MichaelG.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

The Banks could do much more – eg for most people a restriction to payments to a limited set of company accounts + pre set up personal accounts would suffice to stop many frauds where a newly set up personal account is used as to receive money – such accounts could have an added brake on no transfers out within say 5 days of receipt of funds.

Many years ago the PO set up the PO Giro system based on the very successful continental peoples banking system but of course Thatcher saw it removed as too much competition to the big 5 .

[Stuart Munro 1Participant @stuartmunro1]

Posted by Frances IoM on 03/04/2021 09:42:04:
The Banks could do much more – eg for most people a restriction to payments to a limited set of company accounts + pre set up personal accounts would suffice to stop many frauds where a newly set up personal account is used as to receive money – such accounts could have an added brake on no transfers out within say 5 days of receipt of funds.

Many years ago the PO set up the PO Giro system based on the very successful continental peoples banking system but of course Thatcher saw it removed as too much competition to the big 5 .

Frances,

I can just imagine the uproar, investigations by Panorama and the tabloids when banks refuse to make payment to a legitimate payee but I concur the idea has merit. I have a friend (I'm an ex accountant and its important to mention that I do have a friend!) who worked in the fraud section of a major credit card company. His team were working on technological solutions and we are starting to see some of that come through. Second order ID checks (such as a confirmation number texted to your smart phone) are visible but don't stop the payee being duped into paying a fraudster. But intelligent algorithms in credit card companies do help. These identify unusual payments and get them checked as potential frauds. These algorithms are getting better but are of course not fool proof.

Stuart

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Michael –

Err , not sure. I think several other posts had appeared after yours so I was simply linking my comment to the message I'd responded to.

Stuart –

Yes, I find it distasteful too, and wonder if the scammers knew of your neighbour's situation or simply scatter the scam as far as possible, knowing some people will not realise it is lie.

I think the latter. The fraudsters probably know nothing about their victims, but would not care anyway.

It is extremely difficult to stop such calls. You can buy 'phones with caller-number indicators, and link them to a BT call-blocking service, but if the one still in its box here is typical, they use a mains p.s.u. left switched on all the time; and the BT service is not free.

[Author]

Posts