I have moved my business premises again, and in order to inform customers, friends and colleagues alike – I did a blog post about it on my company website. Additionally, I posted a link to the article on my business social media. I did all this for two reasons;

1. I did it to inform people, and keep my business blog and socials up to date
2. I also did it because that’s also what we did when we moved into an older office of ours, and it was at that point we got targeted by “sales brokers” for commercial energy.

It’s like they scour Twitter and stuff for “moved office” and things like that… Anyway, I posted it all and then got on with my life…

A day or so later, I got this email from my PA service;

Oh deary deary me.

I called them, obviously, and I got the SAME spiel as I did when I first made contact with the broker last time.

• Emergency rates
• Not on the best pricing
• bla bla

I didnt give them ANY meter references, I didnt even confirm my exact location and yet they were able to magically find my meter and told me they were able to save me money. The chap I spoke to (forget his name, but he was a cocky shitbag) could only go over gas and not electricity, but we can only assume where the conversation would have gone if I had continued to feed them fase info.

Now, I am not suggesting they are SCAMMERS as such, but like we have covered before in other (currently deleted) blog posts, its their wording, approach and sales tactics that are scummy. They scour the web for anyone moving a commercial business and jump on them to try and hopefully catch someone off guard and steal the energy contract over to one of their mates energy businesses.

My advice to you if you have been contacted by someone like this is do your OWN homework, look these businesses up, do they look legitimate? Do their websites look legitimate? google their business name and check reviews;

Tip: Often these kind of shady brokers use really generic names, so that when you search for them you dont find anything. EG Commercial Support Services is so generic, and searching for that on its own doesn’t find anything bad – but if you wrap it in speech marks and add SCAM or SPAM to the end of the search query, you find lots;

And as always, be scam wise! Be on guard!

If you havent expected the call, then assume they are up to no good and hang up.

There is no meter registration department, commercial energy works pretty much the same as domestic and when you move house you dont take a contract off the first scam call you get in your new home, do you?

Please comment below if you have got anything like this yourselves.

Share this article with your connections so they know not to fall victim to these scummers.

It is something that I have blogged about for over a decade, but more recently I have been made aware of a SERIOUS increase in scams originating from India and similar countries, targeting mostly elderly people or people that they have scammed before (they share and sell info between each other)

DONT BE FOOLED if they seem to have your details and seem legit – there are ways and means of getting this data. Don’t confirm anything with them as this simply validates their data, of which they resell to other scammers.

There are a couple of different types of scam, here are some examples;

• The scammers claim they are from a tech company (usually anti virus related) and claim you signed up and bought something 2 years ago that is now renewing for something like $179 or £70 and unless you call them, it will automatically be debited from your account. The scam is that they make it look like you’ve been given £1790 or £7000 as a refund and they “need the money back or they will lose their job etc”
• The scammers claim your computer/network has been hacked and the hackers are stealing your data etc. They connect to your PC and show you loads of stuff that is totally normal but looks scary. They then make you buy anti virus that you dont need (and that doesn’t exist)
• The scammers claim your national insurance number is on the national crime database and there is a warrant out of your arrest. If this was true, you wouldn’t be hearing it for the first time via a voicemail. They try and get you to pay a kind of “bail” to stop you from going to prison.
• The scammers claim you have won a HUGE prize or have been awarded some kind of grant. You will be asked to make a payment towards the shipping costs they incur when they send you a crate of money. Obviously there is no prize or grant, you are simply giving them money and they vanish once you’ve covered the “costs”.

I wont go into their methods or their techniques – I simply want to state a few FACTS that if we share far and wide enough, should stop a few people getting scammed.

1. No legitimate company will want to CONNECT TO YOUR PC to SHOW YOU that they have given you money back
2. No legitimate company will want you to send them refunds in the form of GIFT CARDS
3. No legitimate bank will EVER ask you to click links in emails and log into your account to do *something* – they would simply say “visit your online banking” and never directly link you to it.
4. Amazon, Microsoft, The Tech Guys, Norton Anti Virus, MacAfee Anti Virus – none of these companies have joint support services and none of them work together.
5. If you get a voicemail or text message that says something is being renewed that you know nothing of, ring your BANK and talk to them about it. They’ll inform you its a scam. NEVER PRESS ONE or ring the number they give you.
6. ALWAYS search for phone numbers they ask you to ring – as they’ll never take you to their official company website.
7. The police or national crime agency wont leave you automated voicemails to let you know you are in trouble

I will keep nipping back to this post and add more examples of the scams they run. If you encounter one or are unsure then please forward the email to scams@0lly.uk or comment below.

Together, we can squash these bastards.

InterfaceFM Ltd Is not a scam – their emails are being spoofed and the scammer registered a similar domain name and set the “Reply-to” address as his.

Ha. Welcome to 2021, where the world is broken and the scams have evolved. My accountant actually sent me this as he was suspicious;

He was confused as we have never dealt with this company.

I checked them out, they are legit. Hmmm

Looked at the details of the email closer, ah ha!

If you look at the spelling of the reply to address, its not INTERFACE its INTREFACE – Sneaky fookin prawns, eh!

So the email appears to come from a legit source, a real company – confusing! But on closer inspection the reply-to address is slightly different meaning you’d reply and think you were requesting info from the legit company but some scamming bastard would be replying instead.

I have informed GoDaddy, I have informed InferfaceFM Ltd

InterfaceFM Ltd Is not a scam – their emails are being spoofed and the scammer registered a similar domain name and set the “Reply-to” address as his.

Karen​ McGargle karen@interfacefm.com karen@intrefacefm.com