Flintshire Trading Standards warns of TV Licence email scams

Flintshire Trading Standards is alerting the public to an ongoing series of scam emails falsely claiming to be from TV Licensing.

These types of scams, known as phishing emails, are a common type of email fraud, where scammers send emails pretending to be from a trusted organisation.

This is to trick you into clicking through to a fake website where you’re prompted to enter your personal details.

The emails may use the TV Licensing logo and have other features that make them look authentic, but you should never trust them or click on any links. If you want to check the details of your TV licence, go directly to the TV Licensing website.

In a social media update, Flintshire Trading Standards outlined several key characteristics to help distinguish between genuine and fraudulent TV Licensing emails:

• Genuine emails will always include the recipient’s name and/or part of their postcode, whereas scam emails typically address the recipient as “Dear Customer.”
• Authentic communications come from the official email address, donotreply@tvlicensing.co.uk or donotreply@spp.tvlicensing.co.uk. Emails concerning payments from the TVL Pay app, specifically for TV Licensing payment card customers, will be sent from noreply@paypoint.com with ‘TVL Pay’ as the sender’s name.
• Scam emails frequently create a sense of urgency, claiming that immediate payment is required, or they may falsely claim that the recipient is eligible for a refund or a cheaper licence.

For anyone who suspects they have received a scam email, Flintshire Trading Standards advises not to click on any links or respond.

Instead, contact TV Licensing directly through their official channels to verify any communication.

TV licensing has produced a guide on how to spot scams and report them, for full information visit here.

You can report phishing attempts to:

Action Fraud: Not all reports will be investigated, but every report will help Action Fraud better understand the scale of the problem and the methods that scammers are using.

report@phishing.gov.uk: forward the email to this government account to help them keep up to date on scammers’ methods.