A good friend of mine asked me to check an email he had received, he had his suspicions already but I checked it for him anyway and he was right – Vehicle Tax Renewal SCAM.
The Vehicle Tax Renewal SCAM Email
The Vehicle Tax Renewal SCAM Analysis
First obvious alarm bell is the sender email;
I’m pretty sure that isn’t a Government email address. I have reached out to Tria to let them know they have either had an email account compromised or they have an hole in their mail servers. They got back to me instantly and have said they are investigating and provided me with some solid advice from a security point of view that would be very useful to someone that wasnt tech-savvy.
The second thing to do is (if on a PC) hover over the button and look in the bottom left corner of your browser (or wherever the link preview shows in your browser);
Doesn’t look very “Government-y” does it! The link below the button on the email also goes to this location.
NB NEVER EVER EVER CLICK ON LINKS IN THESE KIND OF EMAILS – I AM A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL (aka AN IDIOT) SO I DO THESE THINGS FOR YOU!
OOOOO and just when I thought it couldn’t get any juicier I clicked the link on desktop and was greeted with this;
Now this kind of screen here isn’t unusual, as even if I get sent a scam when its pretty new the scam/phishing websites have often already been taken down. The “Mobile_Only” message there intrigued me though, so I switched to a different useragent and refreshed the page and just like magic;
It’s interesting that they have made this a “mobile only” Vehicle Tax Renewal SCAM, the only thing I can think of is that people are more likely to not notice dodgy sender emails and where buttons actually take them too and are therefore more likely to fall for the scam. I think this is even backed up with the way they structured the URL;
hXXps://portal.vehicledd-penalty.taxdisc.service.a-reminder.org/security-check/alert?verify=rbt_83503
I believe they have structured it like that so that no matter what your phone/device screen size you only see part of it;
And therefore it raises less alarm bells.
None of the other links on the page go anywhere, which is unusual. Often I see with these types of scams they make all the other links 100% legit so it comes across more genuine.
However I suspect when the web people at .gov see people being referred to their website from suspicious looking domains it aids in them finding and shutting the scammers down, so this is probably another tactic to not get detected by these particular crooks.
What is the Vehicle Tax Renewal SCAM?
The link on the Vehicle Tax Renewal scam page itself is harmless, its just a form;
Notice the font is different on the “Bank Information” bit? They must have been getting mistakes when people were inputting card details so they added that bit in afterwards so they get two chances to scam you. The card details section did have the ability to check card details to an extent, as it knew my totally made up one was fake – but it did let me use test card details from stripe.
This scam is basically them just trying to steal your identity – if you fill this form out, it just emails them all your info and within a few mins of recieving it they would have rinsed you dry.
DO NOT FILL THESE FORMS OUT.
What to do about the Vehicle Tax Renewal SCAM?
If you are unsure if you have tax due, then you will get a letter from the DVLA through the post – and if you havent and are still not sure, use this link;
https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax
And put your reg in and it will tell your if your tax is due. Do not just rely on email and/or postal notices.
I left the scammers a little note afterwards – but it was a bit swear’y so I wont post it haha.
After I updated the card details to test ones from stripe (like mentioned above) it let me submit the form;
I was then redirected to the actual gov.uk website.
All in all, quite a well planned out scam but still very basic – they are just trying to steal your info so they can buy shit.
Get a VPN with browser protection like Nord VPN and when you get emails like this search for the official website for this kind of thing and Nord will help guide you to the correct website where you can safely either check or renew your tax.
If in doubt, speak to that friend you have that is proper nerdy n that. They will be able to help. If you dont have one of those friends, then i’ll be your friend, just comment below.
Stay eSafe peeps!
Vehicle Tax Renewal SCAM
Vehicle Tax Renewal SCAM