Fake Wetherspoon meal voucher competition

Fake meal vouchers for Wetherspoon pubs are being promoted on Facebook, despite the chain shutting all its social media accounts in 2018.

Users who comment on the posts published by the pages imitating the pub chain are told that they will win meal vouchers if they receive comments from Wetherspoon. But these comments come from scammers who have set up the pages.

Here’s what the posts look like and more about how the scam works.

Wetherspoon Facebook scam

HMRC scams double in a year

Tax-related scams have continued to rise during the pandemic and HMRC responded to more than 1m scam reports in the past 12 months.

Fraudsters often try to mimic HMRC’s messages so they look authentic – be it through scam phone calls or fake web pages – as victims are more likely to transfer money to an institution they recognise and trust.

Here are the most common ways scammers are trying to commit tax scams and how to protect yourself from them.

The four biggest threats

Fake NHS Covid-19 PCR text

There have been several scams circulating throughout the pandemic using the NHS’s name and/or logo. This time it’s a fake text message demanding that you ‘order a PCR testing kit’. It’s made to look like you’ve been pinged by the NHS Covid-19 app, but is another example of fraudsters seeking to panic you into following a URL leading to a fake website.

Here’s what it looks like, and how to differentiate between genuine and fake NHS communications.

Covid-19 smishing

There’s now a much easier way to make us aware of scams directly with our scam sharer tool. Tell us your experiences of phishing emails, fake texts, cold calls and other types of fraud.

Stay safe,

Which? scam alert team

PS Please share this information with your friends, family and neighbours – anyone who may find it helpful. Or they can sign up here to receive this directly to their inbox.