Scam alert !

[Paddy]

Scam alert

Text and email from https://energydotbill-rebate.com/ It a rip-off from the HMG site and looks authentic.

[NigelJK]

Anything from HMG is .gov.uk

[Paddy]

Anything from HMG is .gov.uk

Yes, but hyperlinks can be renamed, and the average Joe may not know what URL he is using.

[vetran]

Its about time most browsers added a check if they are government sites or insured businesses.

Most people aren't experts.

[SueEllen]

Its about time most browsers added a check if they are government sites or insured businesses.

Most people aren't experts.

And it will quickly be faked.

[Whorty]

Received a recorded call off HMRC yesterday ... seems I'm in big doo-doo and owe a lot of tax. Thankfully the nice recorded message put me straight and gave me a way to clear the debt ... phew ... that was a close call

[d000hg]

Its about time most browsers added a check if they are government sites or insured businesses.

Most people aren't experts.

It's surprising how easy it is to almost get fooled even if you are quite savvy, if you don't explicitly check every single link before clicking you can very easily get tricked in a moment of distraction.
I agree that browsers could/should do routine checks for pages like BritishGas.co.ukbillpaying or whatever, which seems to be the common ruse used these days. Or if the link text looks like xxx.gov.uk and the actual link is xxx.gov-123rrr.uk.

[Whorty]

It's surprising how easy it is to almost get fooled even if you are quite savvy, if you don't explicitly check every single link before clicking you can very easily get tricked in a moment of distraction.
I agree that browsers could/should do routine checks for pages like BritishGas.co.ukbillpaying or whatever, which seems to be the common ruse used these days. Or if the link text looks like xxx.gov.uk and the actual link is xxx.gov-123rrr.uk.

In theory I agree, but in practice maybe not so easy given there are 200 (?) countries in the world all with their own specific government sites, plus the millions of official company sites .... so not that easy for Google/MS/AskJeeves to filter out.

[d000hg]

In theory I agree, but in practice maybe not so easy given there are 200 (?) countries in the world all with their own specific government sites, plus the millions of official company sites .... so not that easy for Google/MS/AskJeeves to filter out.

If people complain about a domain that quickly flags specific cases. And Google have local teams in most countries doing this sort of localised work - but the level of actually useful ML/AI they have these days it seems like they could get a lot of it - just think how good GMail spam detection is.

Probably quite an interesting area to work in, the never-ending fight as scammers come up with new tricks.

[vetran]

In theory I agree, but in practice maybe not so easy given there are 200 (?) countries in the world all with their own specific government sites, plus the millions of official company sites .... so not that easy for Google/MS/AskJeeves to filter out.

If they offered the framework I am sure the big boys such as governments and British Gas would implement it. Insuring business domains and bank accounts is the best way to cut fraud. If it asks you to transfer money but limits you to £100 unless you give a pee sample there would be a lot less fraud.