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A wave of fraudulent text messages is being received across the UK, potentially misleading people into turning over their card details to claim a non-existent government grant.
The scam has been quickly designed to take advantage of the confusion following yesterday’s announcement of another national blockade Due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But there are a number of signals in the text message, including grammar and spelling errors, despite claiming they were sent from HM Revenue and Customs, that can alert people to the fraud.
The fake website claims to allow people to claim their COVID-19 grant, but it would likely steal their money
A message seen by Sky News reads: “From HMRC: Third blockade announced, we have been awarded a grant of £ 240 to help during this period, visit to claim:” and then links to a website that criminals control .
While this website is designed to look like the official government website, it is not hosted on the gov.uk domain, another strong signal that people should use to acknowledge that the site is illegitimate.
The site also tells users that they will need their card details ready to claim their COVID-19 government grant, something that does not exist.
HMRC warns people to delete the messages, not to follow the links, and not to enter any information on the fraudulent website.
Fortunately, the Chrome and Safari web browsers flag the website as misleading and claim that it may be trying to trick users into revealing their credit card details.
Google Chrome marks the website as deceptive and warns users not to go any further
Warnings about a different but similar scam offering COVID-19 tax refunds have also been posted on social media.
These scam texts, which operate in exactly the same way, using text messages to lead people to a scam website, claim that the potential victim has an outstanding tax refund that they must claim.
The National Center for Cyber Security advises: “Suspicious text messages should be forwarded to 7726. This free short code allows your provider to investigate the origin of the text and take action if it is found to be malicious.”
Victims of fraud lost more than £ 4.6 million in coronavirus-related scams during the first lockdown last March, according to ActionFraud.
In late May, more than 2,000 victims lost cash through fake online product sales, fake cold calls, non-existent pension plans and other scams.
Another 11,206 people claimed to have been the victims of email (phishing) and text message (smishing) attempts to trick them into giving personal information.
