Scam

[60041]

My son got this in his inbox this morning: apart from the fact that he paid his tax for the full year back in June, I think the email address could be a giveaway!
It appears that vincetheprince works for the DVLA now.
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[john.wigley]

It does rather appear that the incidence of such scams is on the increase, '60041'. Fortunately, this was relatively easy to spot; not all are. As mentioned in another recent thread in similar vein, it is helpful to report these 'phising' attempts to the appropriate authorities. Maybe the villains are feeling the pinch in these difficult times too!

Regards, John.

[DaveNP]

General rule of thumb is to be suspicious of any communication like this, I always check it out by going to the appropriate place independently, not clicking on the links in the message. If you've used the 'insert link' option on the forum you'll know how easy it is to make it look like a link to something it is not, see the future.con is a link to BBC weather I just made.
I have had genuine calls in the past from the security department of my bank and they get upset when I say I'm not telling them anything, I then hang up and dial the bank direct on the regular number, go through security with them and ask what's going on. The last call I had was a phishing call but the bank were quite OK with me calling them to check and said they have been seeing a resurgence of such calls recently.

[GMcL]

Act in haste repent at leisure.

If someone calls and catches you off guard you can always hang up. We've always been taught it is impolite to hang up but that was 50+ years ago.

Ask what it is regarding and tell them now is not convenient you have a meeting or whatever to go to, ask them politely to call back in 30 minutes. Whether they call back or not will tell you if it's genuine and gives you 30 minutes to find out what's what.

As for emails, best setup multiple accounts. The problem is most people are honest and think myfirstname.mylastname<somerandomnumbermaybe>@serv iceprovider.co.uk is what they must have.

Gof*ckyersel@hotmail.com is (probably) taken but you can make any old addresses up and use them for forums, media, whatever you're into and helps you narrow down where the leak is coming from if you get such emails in future.

Create a bucket one for any websites or web apps that insist on an email address to validate use. Once passed the initial verification they can send a billion emails to an address no one monitors. If it's OK for big business why not for the little guy ?

[AndyJudge]

I see these sort of things all the time in my work & yes they're on the increase.

A couple of the tell tales are there

Email sender using a Hotmail,Gmail account. A corporate account would have a proper domain name such as dvla.gov.uk

Email isn't addressed to a person - The DVLA would have your name from the registration information or the claimed failed bank DD.

just hover over any link (don't click it) does the link actually point to the DVLA or just a random site.

Some of the AV vendors used to have quizzes & helpful guides on how to identify Phishing emails, I've just had a quick look & can't find one to post here as an email which is a shame.