Similar scams have cost victims thousands recently
A TV Licence currently costs £169.50 per year, but falling for fraudsters posing as the Licensing agency could cost you significantly more. Last November, a devastating case saw one woman lose £20,000 through an elaborate scam that began with a response to a fake email she believed was from TV Licensing.
The official agency has highlighted five tell-tale signs that could indicate whether an email is genuine or a scam. It also warned that recent email spoofing trends have seen fraudsters manipulate their email address to appear like the official TV Licensing email address.
Sender
For a genuine email, the sender should be TV Licensing with the email address donotreply@tvlicensing.co.uk or donotreply@spp.tvlicensing.co.uk. If either of these doesn’t match, it’s likely a fraudulent email.
Postcode
The Licensing agency explained: “If you have provided us with your postcode details, our emails will include part of your postcode and/or the name on the licence.” For example, this could show your postcode as ***2CD.
Name
TV Licensing assured it will refer to customers using only their title and last name, for example ‘Ms Xyz’. Scammers likely won’t have this information so they might address you as ‘Dear customer/client’ or even use your email address as your name.
Spelling and grammar
A common pitfall that scammers often fall into is poor spelling and grammar in their email and text scams. Despite the increasing use of AI in fraudulent messages, the phrasing usually appears odd, with things like incorrect punctuation or random capitalisation being tell tale signs.
Links
The agency has urged Brits to be cautious of any emails promising money or refunds, especially if it requires clicking on a link to access it. This is typically followed by a request for your banking details. However, TV Licensing assured: “We would never process a refund in this way.”
Instead, you can verify the authenticity of links in an email by hovering over them on a computer without clicking. This will reveal the web address it will direct you to.
If you’re using a smartphone or tablet, you can press and hold the link to see the web address, but don’t release it while still on the link. The only legitimate web addresses used by TV Licensing are tvlicensing.co.uk or spp. tvlicensing.co.uk.
If a scam email alleges that you’re behind on payments or risk having your licence expire, you can sign into your TV Licensing account on the official website to verify this. If you’ve already entered personal details or clicked a suspicious link, you can report this to Action Fraud.
You can also report a scam email to report@phishing.gov. uk, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) will investigate. If you’re concerned that you might have given your banking details to a fraudster, it’s best to contact your bank as soon as possible.
