Ware Online Community Forum

Mel wrote:Now I didn't know you could report telephone scams to the TPS.

Apologies, I should clarify.

You can report unsolicited sales & marketing calls made to TPS registered numbers to the TPSOnline website. In my experience, most of the unsolicited calls I received on my TPS registered number are in my opinion scams. I always report them. However, to be clear, what I am reporting are calls that break the "TPS code", not necessarily the fact that they are scams.

Useful link:
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/stillgetcalls.html

Thanks for clarifying

The safest way to deal with this sort of thing is to instruct all suppliers who would send an invoice to txt you the invoice number to your mobile phone when they email an invoice.
If you get an invoice and a matching txt then its expected. No matching txt just trash the invoice. Don't open attachments for invoices you aren't expecting.
And be aware that some scammers (lets call them by their proper names thieves) are even eying up houses that are having work done. Asking who the trades people on site are under the guise of possibly using them and then sending an invoice under that company name with fake bank details.

To ensure the payment details are correct you can also ask the supplier to BACs 1p into your account. When it arrives it will give the details of the account that paid it to you so you can confirm the payment details match.

Pat-H wrote:The safest way to deal with this sort of thing is to instruct all suppliers who would send an invoice to txt you the invoice number to your mobile phone when they email an invoice.
If you get an invoice and a matching txt then its expected. No matching txt just trash the invoice. Don't open attachments for invoices you aren't expecting.
And be aware that some scammers (lets call them by their proper names thieves) are even eying up houses that are having work done. Asking who the trades people on site are under the guise of possibly using them and then sending an invoice under that company name with fake bank details.

To ensure the payment details are correct you can also ask the supplier to BACs 1p into your account. When it arrives it will give the details of the account that paid it to you so you can confirm the payment details match.

Most genuine invoices will be PDFs. Scammers typically send "invoices" out as compressed ZIP files in my experience. However, what Pat-H says still applies.