Warning issued about TV license fee refund email scam
For people with TV licenses, it may not seem unusual that the licensing agency would want to contact you regarding your license. Unfortunately, a recent flurry of correspondence claiming to be from the licensing agency is, in fact, a scam.
The scam emails
People have been receiving emails claiming to be from the TV licensing company where the recipient is informed that, following an annual calculation, they are due a refund of £87.05. Instead of crediting your account, the email claims that they have incomplete banking records and that you need to fill a form in to receive your refund.
The fact that they have asked for banking details should be a warning sign to everyone. However, not everyone is aware of how sophisticated internet scamming has become. The fear of breaking the law and missing out on money will drive many people to fill in information. The form itself will be a phishing device, whereby the scammers take your banking details and either sell them on or use them.
TV licensing
Everybody needs a TV license to watch the TV in the UK. Once you have arranged your TV aerial installation in Swansea, through a company such as https://www.onevisionltd.co.uk/tv-aerial-installation-swansea, you need to arrange a license over the phone or online. Whatever way you wish to do it, the agency will never send you an email asking you for banking details. It will never offer a refund by email. It may be possible that you have been overpaying if you have turned 75 or have declared that you are partially sighted. You will not be contacted by email to receive the money back.
Identifying scam emails
Scam emails are difficult to identify, but there are some things that you can look out for to protect yourself. If you receive an email with incorrect spelling or numbers being used in place of letters, you know it is a scam.
If the email asks you to send money to an unknown recipient, it is a scam and you should never do this. Opening links from an unknown website may cause a virus, so install a security shield for your device. Check the email address of the sender for irregularities – an additional dash is hard to spot in a fake account.
