That was close

[miasmum]

Last Thursday I received an email from Luke's care company to say they had changed their bank details, so could I confirm receipt of the email, so they knew they were in contact with the right customer and they would send me the new details. It looked like their usual email address so I replied and confirmed receipt and they sent me the new details.

I have just gone onto Nationwide and set up the new payment details and as I tried to send the first payment, as Nationwide will only let you sent £10,000 at a time, I got a message to say STOP this looks like a scam. I rang them and they confirmed it is a scam. I said didn't you think to let all your clients know, she said no because the only one that had received it was West Northants District Council, for all their payments. Well them and me so you can tell who the big payers are cant you?

Thank heavens for Nationwide and their security systems is all I can say or that would have been a very big sum of money winging its way God know where

And I thought I was savvy

[Workingman]

Phew, Shell, that was close!

The golden rule is never to take emails or calls at face value. If you want to confirm go by a different route to a known email address or number, one that you have on correspondence with, and even then be careful.

Well done to Nationwide for being on the ball.

Is there such a thing as West Northants District Council? I am thinking not, though it sounds legit.

[JanB]

Blimey Shell

[TheOstrich]

OMG, MM, that's downright scary. A very plausible "scam".

Googling suggests it's "West Northamptonshire Council", WM, covering Northampton town and Daventry areas.

[saundra]

Gosh M M it would scare me to death xx

[Workingman]

OMG, MM, that's downright scary. A very plausible "scam".

Googling suggests it's "West Northamptonshire Council", WM, covering Northampton town and Daventry areas.

Ossie, not quite the same as West Northants District Council is it?

Close, but not the full shilling, eh?

This is what scammers do, they use believable names to draw us in, and we often fall for them.

[Kaz]

Absolute b******s! Really glad it was stopped in time.

[miasmum]

West Northants is as Ossie says Frank. They were the other party that got the dodgy email, me and them. It was the company that told me that.

The scammers used the name of the care company we use, pretending to send an email from them to say they had changed their bank details. They appear to have only sent it to me and WNDC.

[TheOstrich]

So if it was such a targeted scam, MM, is there an implication that the care company's systems were compromised?

[miasmum]

We have sent them the email trail including the behind the scenes stuff that shows IP addresses, so they will look into it. That is exactly what Tim said though

Although other people may have just updated and paid it and the company won't notice until the payments are late.