Just as with email addresses, sometimes personal phone numbers can be unnervingly easy to obtain. And since a large proportion of the adult UK population are drivers, scammers don\u2019t necessarily need to know much about your driving history in order to target you \u2013 all they need is a phone number and an educated guess. That goes some way to explaining the basic tactics behind each new spate of spam texts that appear every so often.<\/p>\n
The latest ones to circulate are purporting to be from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), trying to panic their recipients into paying for fake penalty charges. Now, the real DVSA has sent out an official warning to drivers, telling them to be on the lookout. Here\u2019s a bit more about what these texts look like, how you can steer clear of the pitfalls, and what to do if you think you might have fallen afoul of them.<\/p>\n
Most spam texts are mass-sent to hundreds or even thousands of recipients, so if you\u2019ve received a text along these lines, there\u2019s a good chance that it goes something like this:<\/p>\n
\u201cDvsa notice for you: You have a parking penalty charge due on 2024\/9\/30. If you do not pay your fine on time, your car may be banned from driving, you might haeve to pay more, or you could be taken to court.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will then proceed to warn the recipient to \u201cCheck and pay parcking penatly charge\u201d and give you a web link at the end of the text. (For obvious reasons, we\u2019re not reproducing that here.) If the text is ignored, as it should be, it may then be followed up with reminders to make it seem more legitimate, and add to the sense of urgency. Some will also warn the recipient that their \u201ccar will be banned from driving on the road starting tomorrow\u201d.<\/p>\n
It’s all quite unnerving, and at their core they\u2019re classic scam tactics \u2013 it\u2019s all about creating fear and urgency to prevent people from properly thinking things through.<\/p>\n
The good news is that scam texts like these can be quite easy to spot if you know what you\u2019re looking for, and relatively easy to check even if you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the most important one: first and foremost, the DVSA does not issue or deal with parking fines. So that\u2019s a major clue right off the bat. They also typically don\u2019t text people \u2013 their preferred method of communication is a letter or email. If you\u2019ve had a text like this, then, those facts alone should set you on your guard immediately.<\/p>\n
Lots of these texts also bear a lot of tell-tale signs, some of which are specific to this scam, and others which are usually reliable indicators of scams in general.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a quick (non-exhaustive) rundown of some of the things to watch out for:<\/p>\n
And of course that age-old rule still applies \u2013 trust your instincts. If something seems suspicious, it probably is. You can always contact the DVSA yourself to check. Don\u2019t forget that most legitimate organisations doling out fines deliberately give you quite a long window to pay, mostly in the region of a few weeks to a few months. It will never just be a few days (unless they\u2019ve tried to contact you before), and certainly won\u2019t be a matter of hours.<\/p>\n
First and foremost, don\u2019t respond to it, or acknowledge it directly in any other way. You don\u2019t need to tell the DVSA, but it is a good idea to report it to the National Cyber Security Centre<\/strong><\/a>. If you\u2019ve already responded or you think your information may be compromised, there may still be actions you can take to protect yourself. You can go over to the official site to read the National Cyber Security Centre\u2019s advice directly.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll leave that side of things to the NCSC. As for us here at Scrap Car Network<\/strong><\/a>, we\u2019ll stick to what we do best \u2013 getting you the very best price when you scrap your car<\/strong><\/a>. All you have to do is enter in your car reg and postcode onto the fields in our homepage, and in virtually no time at all you\u2019ll be looking at your very own instant scrap car quote. It\u2019s all go from there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just as with email addresses, sometimes personal phone numbers can be unnervingly easy to obtain. And since a large proportion of the adult UK population are drivers, scammers don\u2019t necessarily need to know much about your driving history in order to target you \u2013 all they need is a phone number and an educated guess. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":8230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n