admin

A Member of the Neighbourhood Watch has received a phishing scam by email (copied below) relating to a false Fixed Penalty / Parking Charge Notices being issued against them.
Cyber criminals made contact with our Member by email and used a phishing technique to try and obtain money from him.

Phishing is where Cyber criminals use fake messages as bait to lure you into clicking on the links within their scam email or text message, or to give away sensitive information (such as bank details). These messages may look like the real thing but are malicious. Once clicked, you may be sent to a non secure website which could download viruses onto your computer, or steal your passwords.

The email purports to be from HM Courts and Tribunal Service and tries to infer that our Member had been charged for using a vehicle in what they call a “charging area”.
There are three main things that identify this email to be fraudulent:

-Email Address: This is the strongest evidence that this email is fraudulent but it is not the most obvious. Whilst the display name of the sender shows as from HM Courts and Tribunals Service the actual email address is very different.

-No Vehicle Details: Legitimate parking enforcement companies contact DVLA to obtain registered keeper detail of vehicles using the Registration, Make and Model of your vehicle. They are only provided with a name and address and not email addresses or telephone numbers. If you had genuinely been issued a Fixed Penalty or a Parking charge Notice you would be contacted by post. If your vehicle has been parked in an area it shouldn’t the details of your vehicle will be recorded manually or by some form of electronic monitoring equipment.

-Location: The location for the alleged offence. The only information provided about the alleged offence is that it occurred in the United Kingdom. Legitimate Parking Companies or Law Enforcement would state the exact location, date and time.

Our Member correctly concluded that the message was a scam and deleted the message. Searching the internet for reports of similar scam attempts he sent us a warning issued by Humberside Police reporting that the same email had very recently been sent to others. We have used that information in the preparation of this report together with a copy of the email (screenshot).

If you have received an email which you are not quite sure about let us know, you might also forward it to the Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS): report@phishing.gov.uk

Your report of a phishing email will help protect more people from being affected.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) will analyse the suspect email and any websites it links to. They’ll use any additional information you have provided to look for and monitor suspicious activity.

If they discover activity that they believe is malicious, they may:

-Seek to block the address the email came from, so it can no longer send emails
-Work with hosting companies to remove links to malicious websites
-Raise awareness of commonly reported suspicious emails and methods used.

Whilst the NCSC is unable to inform you of the outcome of its review, they can confirm that they do act upon every message received.

A member of the Neighbourhood Watch reports receiving a telephone call on their mobile this afternoon. The call advised that there was an outstanding charge on our Members income tax account  and that in order to settle the outstanding amount it was necessary to press “1”. Failure to settle the account would lead to arrest.  Our Member immediately hung up.  Subsequently calling the telephone number (anonymously) of the scammer, which was not answered. The indicated telephone number was 01274 262017 which is itself a Bradford number but might of course  be a spoof number.

Quick thinking by our member and a healthy mistrust of such approaches saving the day. However it is easy to be taken in by these scams, especially when they seemingly come from an authority such as  Inland Revenue, so be aware of this latest wheeze to extract your money!

A resident reports that of recent, last week or so, there has been a spate of dog fouling in Sutton along Sutton Lane, extending from the bus shelter opposite the green at the mouth of Station Road along towards the speeding sign on Sutton Lane, eastern side of the road. The resident has been clearing up the poo and disposing of it appropriately. If you notice someone walking a dog along along Sutton Lane and not clearing up after their animal please let us know. There is now a team of Enforcement Officers patrolling the District who will be very keen to get involved who have a way of turning piles of dog poo into a deposit of another kind, a £100 contribution to their bottom line. Here’s how it works:

Bassetlaw District Council (BDC) is upping its commitment to making the district a cleaner and safer place to live, work and visit by targeting people who deliberately drop litter and fail to clean up after their dog.

BDC will be taking a firmer approach to littering and dog fouling by introducing Enforcement Officers across the district from August 3rd who have the powers to issue Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) of up to £100 should they witness people littering or failing to clean up after their dog. Should the FPN not be paid, the offender could face prosecution and a potential fine of up to £2,500. DE are not paid by BDC for their services they are allowed to retain the £100 fines that they impose. The more fines the more profitable this becomes so they are likely to be very keen!

Working in partnership with District Enforcement Ltd. (DE) a company that specialises in environmental enforcement and to whom BDC have delegated powers, DE Officers will be patrolling the district, initially in the town centres of Worksop, Retford, Harworth and Tuxford, but also across the rest of the district including more rural areas.

DE Officers will initially look to engage with residents and remind them to put their litter, cigarette butts and dog poo in a bin or take it home with them. They will also enforce offences relating to Public Spaces Protection Orders. 

So if you allow your dog to foul along Sutton Lane or indeed anywhere else in the District you stand a fair chance of being stung with a £100 fine. So please clear it up or be forced to pay up!

You can find more information about District Enforcement and the Council’s new policy of issuing Fixed Penalty Notices here.

A  resident, a member of Sutton Neighbourhood Watch, reports that vandals were seen targetting the Sutton Meadow on Sunday 2nd August at 7.55 pm: