Reply to: Spam email purporting to come from Companies House

[Eirikur]

Got a lot of these too.
Most spammers seem to get my email address from the Monster job board

The nice thing with gmail is that you can put a dot anywhere in you email account and it will still arrive. for example [email protected] can be written as [email protected] or [email protected], etc By doing this I found out Monster is the worst of the worst

[lilelvis2000]

I Regularly get these, along with e-mails purporting to be from:
Barclays about some money transfer issue
UPS/FedEx/DHL about some customs issue with parcel in US
HMRC about a credit balance
SKY about some unpaid balance
Amazon about some order - which I never made

Its a long list getting longer all the time.

[mos]

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[jamesbrown]

Just another warning that these e-mails are doing the rounds again. They look legitimate on the face of it, but they aren't. Never open a zipped attachment associated with an e-mail unless you're 100% sure of the origin.

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/sec...ce/index.shtml

[darrylmg]

You need to be super careful with these e-mails, as they often contain the CryptoLocker malware, which will really ruin your day. Always assume that unsolicited e-mails from official places are fake and take it from there. Never open a zipped attachment unless you really trust the origin.

Crytolocker is a right pain.
A friend in Italy lost a lot of data. Especially because he didn't do backups.

[jamesbrown]

You need to be super careful with these e-mails, as they often contain the CryptoLocker malware, which will really ruin your day. Always assume that unsolicited e-mails from official places are fake and take it from there. Never open a zipped attachment unless you really trust the origin.

[Martin at NixonWilliams]

There's also the usual "Tax Rebate" spam emails at the moment, asking you for bank details so they can send you the rebate of £900+

More than ever this year!

[Clare@InTouch]

I saw another of these a couple days ago too, so they are back doing the rounds. Interesting to know what the spammers get from this one.

There's also the usual "Tax Rebate" spam emails at the moment, asking you for bank details so they can send you the rebate of £900+

[DirtyDog]

<bump>

Just had another one of these:

FW: Case - 2816095

A company complaint was submitted to Companies House website.

The submission number is 2816095

For more details please click : <spoofed URL>https://companieshouse.gov.uk/Case?=2816095</spoofed URL>

Please quote this number in any communications with Companies House.

All Web Filed documents are available to view / download for 10 days after their
original submission. However it is not possible to view copies of accounts that
were downloaded as templates.

Companies House Executive Agency may use information it holds to prevent
and detect fraud. We may also share such information, for the same purpose,
with other organisations that handle public funds.

If you have any queries please contact the Companies House Contact Centre
on +44 (0)303 1234 500 or email [email protected]


Note: This email was sent from a notification-only email address which cannot
accept incoming email. Please do not reply directly to this message.

Companies House
4 Abbey Orchard Street
Westminster
London
SW1P 2HT
Tel +44 (0)303 1234 500

Phone number and email address are valid, but the links go to mypafamilylawyer<dot>com

[malvolio]

So have I, except my ISP (the excellent Andrews and Arnold) have automagcially replaced the .zip with a warning message. All such mails get deleted.

[jamesbrown]

I received one of these today, as above.

I've received similar e-mails in recent weeks purporting to be from banks, all with zip files attached.

[Clare@InTouch]

A client of mine had one of those yesterday, with a zip file attached:

Subject: FW: Case

This message has been generated in response to the company complaint
submitted to Companies House WebFiling service.

(CC01) Company Complaint for the above company was accepted on 03/09/2013.

The submission number is

Please quote this number in any communications with Companies House.

All WebFiled documents are available to view / download for 10 days after
their original submission. However it is not possible to view copies of
accounts that were downloaded as templates.

Not yet filing your accounts online? See how easy it is...

Note: reference to company may also include Limited Liability
Partnership(s).

Thank you for using the Companies House WebFiling service.

Service Desk tel +44 (0)303 1234 500 or email
[email protected]

Note: This email was sent from a notification-only email address which
cannot accept incoming email. Please do not reply directly to this message.


The Companies House website actually has a warning up too:

03/09/13 @12:00PM: Scam Alert - We have been made aware that random e-mails claiming to be from Companies House
with a zipfile mail attachment are being sent. These mails have not been generated by Companies House and we strongly advise you not to
open the attachment. Our customers should be assured that the details we hold have not been compromised.

[Martin at NixonWilliams]

Also Chinese scams relating to some Chinese company purporting to use your domain name in China. The scammers try to frighten you into registering your domain (using them of course) in China.

Ah yes, a client of ours did receive an email from 'Mr. Yang' at 'The Department of Asian Domain Registration Service in China' just recently..

[Martin at NixonWilliams]

I get these relatively frequently, some pretending to be from banks, HMRC, and Companies House. In fact, I do need to talk to my email host about these.

I can't remember the content, but normally it's something about a tax bill that needs to be paid, or returns due to Companies House or whatever.

Yes, they contain a .zip file, but the real giveaway is that the .zip file contains a .exe file. I don't have any other info about the content I'm afraid.

No problem, thanks.

Our clients only really receive spam emails from people pretending to be HMRC, which is usually just to obtain bank details - I am curious as to what information these people are trying to obtain by pretending to be Companies House.

[cojak]

Also Chinese scams relating to some Chinese company purporting to use your domain name in China. The scammers try to frighten you into registering your domain (using them of course) in China.

The new pop-up registration companies only last a few weeks before shutting down and starting again.

As usual, ignore.