I know of businesses that have been tricked by these type of scams, some of them have lost £1000’s. I got something like this before but they’d gone to EXTREME lengths to try and make it look as convincing as possible. This attempt could have fooled some people but seemed to have got itself a bit mixed up. Let me explain.
The sender was: Lucy Green <lucy@contourdigiital.com> and Contour Digital is a legitimate business, but then the business mentioned in the body of the email is Wilkie which is also a legitimate business – the two are not linked.
NB: I have contacted both parties to inform them of the scam.
The phone number in the email is not the official email for either of the businesses, I suspect if I call it I will be connected to an overseas call center who will try and blag me into paying a fake invoice.
If you get an email claiming you owe someone money, if it doesn’t ring a bell, or if the contact info is different, OR if the bank details are different to the details you have used before;
BE CAREFUL everyone – the scammers are ON ONE at the moment. I have received about 5 emails this week from spoofed/misspelled domains claiming I owe them money, and then this sucker landed in my inbox. Very convincing looking.
Sender email: lukinovlmaryam66t@icloud.com (doesn’t look very eBay official does it!)
Alarm Bell Number 1 – they are asking me to PHONE them if I have an issue with the purchase. eBay do not do that.
Alarm Bell Number 2 – I didnt buy any apple headphones lol
Alarm Bell Number 3 – Nothing in the email is clickable, the seller ID and the product image etc should be clickable
Its a crap scam, BUT it could fool some people. I am gonna ring the number and see if I can get a good recording of their tactics in a bit.
Well this was a new one! I heard a ping from my phone and spotted an email about a TV licence – I rolled my eyes and opened it as I dont actually pay for one due to not recieving any live TV or even having an aerial plugged into any of my TV’s, so thought they were trying to trick me into buying a licence – when suddenly, I spotted a few red flags.
The date format is wrong, it should read 3/5/2023 for it to be correct in the UK
The email address is wrong, that domain goes to a fresh install of WP and not the TV licence website
The “renew now” link goes to some random hosted file on a hacked leather website
The final bit was the clever/sneaky bit about not being able to reply to that email – it sounds legit but also means you wouldn’t try and reply to the email as then you would see the sender address was incorrect.
I have informed the hacked website they have been hacked, and I have reported the email as a phishing email to Google – please dont click on any links in emails you receive like this and if you are unsure please comment below or reach out to me on twitter and I will help you work out if its legit or not.
Google food;
Ref : [10525279] You’ve just 1 days left to renew your TV Licence. / Ref : [1052528] / 5/3/2023 9:01:35 AM
Times are hard right now for many people, and most of us are working together to get through the tough times – however, there are always individuals and/or organisations that set out to make a quick buck at the expense of others. One of those organisations is IPR Protection aka EU Brand Protection.
I am inherently skeptical about these things, so I went to Google to see if anyone had flagged this company as being sketchy – and sure enough, they have. Not only are there other websites claiming these are scams but also their company name is so generic its classed as a keyword when searching – and not a business name – which means you can’t actually find the 5 star Google reviews they claim to have (but for some reason do not link to from their website?)
The website is a free template, and is also used on their sister website EUBrandProtection.com, there is ZERO mention of an official company name, no terms and conditions, no privacy policy, and these staff photos are so obviously generated by AI. its unreal;
I found a company on companies house called IPR Protection Ltd that is owned by a lady called Dayle Lindsey Adams – she also seems to own other random companies from a business card app service, an aesthetics company and some other stuff. All look a bit naff to be honest, like she had a bunch of ideas and just threw some money at them.
Dayle Lindsey Adams
Image from her app website, showing a demo screen with her other companies referenced
Another app screen
She also makes no attempt to hide her ties to all her companies as you can see in the screenshots above. Perhaps she never thought she would be investigated by someone like myself. Schoolgirl error though, Dayle.
IPR managed to scam over £30,000 out of people in 2021, their 2022 accounts havent been submitted yet but I’ll update this article when they come out so we can see how much money they have scammed from people in 2022.
I reached out to Dayle for comment, via two of her businesses – but havent had a response. If you or an associate of yours is reading this, Dayle, please contact me or add a comment below to add your side of the story. I do think it would be wise for you to stop being a scumbag and stop misleading businesses into spending money with you, though. I’d hate for your scammy ways to infect your other business ventures – as despite looking naff, they dont look to be a scam.
So if you are contacted by IPR Protection or EU Brand Protection then report as PHISHING or SPAM within your email system. My email was from Jack Walsh who appears to be a fake name too, but they may use other names too.
Please comment below if you have received an email from these cowboys, please include any names if they differ from the person I was apparently emailed from – as this will help others find this post and avoid being scammed.
