Scams in the Post/Council Tax

Post by nick
(The questions come after the preamble)
How do you spot a postal scam? What are the characteristics of a piece
of scam mail?
*It will appear to come from a well-known and trusted organisation
*It will be difficult to verify where it has actually come from
*It will ask you for personal information
*It will insist that you act immediately to avoid an actual or implied
peril.
So why does the latest message asking me to confirm my Single Occupancy
Council Tax status look and feel like a postal scam letter? It uses the
logo but no other details of my local council and has an unidentified PO
Box address four counties away. Apart from confirming my eligibility for
a Council Tax discount, it want me to hand over other personal
information and it threatens that if not dealt with immediately (well,
within 14 days of whenever the letter was sent out) there will be
penalties - my Council Tax discount will be cancelled
If the state can pre-announce the arrival of election material and other
random events, why could they not have pre-announced this enquiry and
made sure that the paperwork looked a little less scammy?
What happens to those who receive the letter and bin it, thinking that
it really is a scam? And other people who may be away, in hospital or
abroad and not see the letter until too late? What's supposed to happen
to them?
(Okay, this rant might seem a bit rich coming from a poster who, a while
ago, asked ulm whether there might be any worthwhile benefit to the
council by my forgoing my discount entitlement but this enquiry looks
very badly thought out to me.)

This sort of nonsense is widespread. When doing 2FA for online credit
card transactions we told things like: "The bank will NEVER ask you for
this code. If anyone does it's a scam" (when *they* are asking to be
told the code in order to verify your identity", and along the same
lines "NEVER SHARE THIS PASSCODE. Not even with us". Or "If someone asks
you for this code, they are a criminal", which is a fine endorsement of
for example Amex when you are trying to pay your monthly bill with a
debit card.

--
Roland Perry

Martin Brown

2024-11-15 20:17:39 UTC

The classic advice is that the more they press you to do something *now*
the more that you should prevaricate. I sometimes wind dodgy callers up
and/or leave them on hold while I get Fred who knows about computers.

I consider this a public service tying up one of the scammers for a
while until they finally wake up and drop the line.

Post by nick
So why does the latest message asking me to confirm my Single Occupancy
Council Tax status look and feel like a postal scam letter? It uses the
logo but no other details of my local council and has an unidentified PO
Box address four counties away. Apart from confirming my eligibility for
a Council Tax discount, it want me to hand over other personal
information and it threatens that if not dealt with immediately (well,
within 14 days of whenever the letter was sent out) there will be
penalties - my Council Tax discount will be cancelled
If the state can pre-announce the arrival of election material and other
random events, why could they not have pre-announced this enquiry and
made sure that the paperwork looked a little less scammy?

It is one of those perennial problems pay peanuts get monkeys.

Post by nick
What happens to those who receive the letter and bin it, thinking that
it really is a scam? And other people who may be away, in hospital or
abroad and not see the letter until too late? What's supposed to happen
to them?
(Okay, this rant might seem a bit rich coming from a poster who, a while
ago, asked ulm whether there might be any worthwhile benefit to the
council by my forgoing my discount entitlement but this enquiry looks
very badly thought out to me.)

Where banks have stupid rules *and* cold call I hold them to a stand
off. *They* cold called me so they must prove to me that they are who
they say they are. If everyone took that position then scam phone calls
would quickly die out (and so would nuisance sales calls from banks).

Whenever they call me it is almost always *not* for my benefit but for
meeting their sales bonus target. Colour me cynical.

--
Martin Brown

Mark Goodge

2024-11-15 21:42:50 UTC

Post by Martin Brown
The classic advice is that the more they press you to do something *now*
the more that you should prevaricate. I sometimes wind dodgy callers up
and/or leave them on hold while I get Fred who knows about computers.
I consider this a public service tying up one of the scammers for a
while until they finally wake up and drop the line.

Apparently O2 has created an AI Lenny.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/o2_ai_granny/

For those unaware of Lenny:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_(bot)
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lenny+phone

Mark

Andy Burns

2024-11-15 18:16:51 UTC

After ~20 years of not continually asking for single occupier
confirmation, my councuk did ask fr it for a couple of years, then went
back to not asking for the last ~10 years.

The electoral register forms are now simpler, instead of demanding the
same details every year, they started pre-printing in the details and
just required a signature to say nothing changed, now they send the
preprinted form abd if nothing's changed I don't have to take any action.

As for the address being somewhat remote, I'm aware of three councils
who have formed a local authority trading company which centralises
finance, HR, customer services etc, I presume that isn't an uncommon
arrangement?

Roland Perry

2024-11-15 19:29:40 UTC

Post by Andy Burns

After ~20 years of not continually asking for single occupier
confirmation, my councuk did ask fr it for a couple of years, then went
back to not asking for the last ~10 years.
The electoral register forms are now simpler, instead of demanding the
same details every year, they started pre-printing in the details and
just required a signature to say nothing changed, now they send the
preprinted form abd if nothing's changed I don't have to take any action.
As for the address being somewhat remote, I'm aware of three councils
who have formed a local authority trading company which centralises
finance, HR, customer services etc, I presume that isn't an uncommon
arrangement?

Breckland, East Cambs, East Suffolk, Fenland and West Suffolk have set
up a joint agency to deal with Council Tax and Housing Benefit.

But not four counties away, being just over the border in Norfolk.

--
Roland Perry

Theo

2024-11-16 10:17:54 UTC

Post by Andy Burns

After ~20 years of not continually asking for single occupier
confirmation, my councuk did ask fr it for a couple of years, then went
back to not asking for the last ~10 years.
The electoral register forms are now simpler, instead of demanding the
same details every year, they started pre-printing in the details and
just required a signature to say nothing changed, now they send the
preprinted form abd if nothing's changed I don't have to take any action.
As for the address being somewhat remote, I'm aware of three councils
who have formed a local authority trading company which centralises
finance, HR, customer services etc, I presume that isn't an uncommon
arrangement?

Breckland, East Cambs, East Suffolk, Fenland and West Suffolk have set
up a joint agency to deal with Council Tax and Housing Benefit.
But not four counties away, being just over the border in Norfolk.

Whereever the council(s) may house their support centre, it's possible that
processing such forms are outsourced. For example, they contract out some
company which does data entry/OCR/scanning of the forms and it goes to the
building where the scanning facility is, rather than the building in which
they host the call centre. I'm not surprised if the scanning facility is
national and not local to each council, since the scanners would be sitting
idle most of the year unless they had other work.

It's also possible the whole process including sending out the forms is
outsourced. ie the council let the contract to 'confirm status of XXX,XXX
council tax payers' and it's down to the outsourcing firm how they do it,
including design of letters. They would specifically not want you to
contact the council since the outsourcer is being paid to take care of it
and the council don't want to be involved.

You can likely search on the PO Box address and it may return details of the
outfit running it. If it's an industrial mail handling operation that's one
thing, but if it's a domestic flat, a restaurant or a serviced office rented
by the day that's something more dubious. With Google, Streetview and
Companies House it's quite hard to hide such things nowadays.

Theo

Sam Plusnet

2024-11-16 17:50:51 UTC

Send a copy of the letter to your Local Authority pointing out that
criminals are sending out obvious scam letters in their name.
Tell them that, whilst you were not fooled for one minute by such a
shoddy piece of work, some unwary people might just fall for it.

--
Sam Plusnet

Nick Odell

2024-11-17 12:19:00 UTC

Ah, but the letter said "Do not send this to your local authority -
ANOTHER reason to suspect a scam to add to the others.

By way of diversion, have you seen the lovely mail scam pulled off in
Switzerland under the guise of their metrological service?
https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/16/swiss_malware_qr/

But to resume: after researching it, I'm 99% sure that it is genuine
but just to cover the 1%, instead of sending back the information by
text (potentially giving fraudsters my mobile number) or by web form
(potentially giving them my email address and phone number) I filled
in the form and put it in the post with a second-class stamp.

And then I realised, not only is there no hope of second class mail
being delivered within the required 14 days but...
... I'VE GIVEN THEM MY BLOODY SIGNATURE instead!

Nick

Sam Plusnet

2024-11-17 18:20:30 UTC

Post by Nick Odell

Ah, but the letter said "Do not send this to your local authority -
ANOTHER reason to suspect a scam to add to the others.

That looks like an excellent reason to give them a copy.

Post by Nick Odell
By way of diversion, have you seen the lovely mail scam pulled off in
Switzerland under the guise of their metrological service?
https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/16/swiss_malware_qr/

Yes. I liked the BBC comment that the cost of posting those letters
turned the usual spam/scam economics in its head.

Post by Nick Odell
But to resume: after researching it, I'm 99% sure that it is genuine
but just to cover the 1%, instead of sending back the information by
text (potentially giving fraudsters my mobile number) or by web form
(potentially giving them my email address and phone number) I filled
in the form and put it in the post with a second-class stamp.
And then I realised, not only is there no hope of second class mail
being delivered within the required 14 days but...
... I'VE GIVEN THEM MY BLOODY SIGNATURE instead!

Look on the bright side. It might just get lost in the post.

--
Sam Plusnet

Davey

2024-11-18 11:47:16 UTC

On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 18:20:30 +0000

Post by Nick Odell