Winter fuel payment scam texts: How to spot and avoid them

Reading time 5 minutes

What are winter fuel payment scams?

Hannah Bingle, Financial Crime Training Lead at Yorkshire Building Society, explains how winter fuel payment scams work:

Scammers send text messages and emails pretending to be from the government.

These messages say that people might be able to get money, a new payment, or discounts on their bills. They include a link, asking for details to be updated, and a deadline to make it seem urgent. This is to pressure people into acting quickly without taking time to check.

The aim of this kind of messaging is to capture people’s personal details, so that they can later be used for identity theft or to steal money. They take advantage of the uncertainty and worry that people may have around their bills to gather personal information.

If you receive a text message claiming to be from an official source, offering you money or a discount on your bills, be very suspicious. Don’t click on links in unexpected messages, as they can open malicious software even if you don’t enter information.

How to spot a winter fuel payment scam

Winter fuel payment scams and other energy scams try to look as real as possible – for example, a text message or website designed to look like it’s from the government.

This can make them hard to spot – but there are a few methods you can use to identify a scam.

Spotting a scam text message

The key thing to remember is that the government will never ask you to provide bank details by contacting you via text message. Any text you receive from the government promising financial help with your bills will be a scam and should be ignored, reported then deleted.

Looking at the details of a text message can help you uncover a scam:

Website address

A scam text can include a link to a webpage. The link may appear as a website address or a clickable jumble of letters and numbers.

Don’t click on any links that you receive through text – this isn’t the way an energy grant will ever be promoted by the government.

Phone number

The phone number might be a mobile rather than from an official source. It’s worth searching for the phone number in a search engine to see if it’s been flagged as coming from a scammer.

Urgency

Is the text telling you to act quickly? Scammers will often try to force you into action by pretending you need to respond immediately.

Always pause and think before clicking on a link or entering any personal details. Pretending that a grant or discount has to be claimed rapidly is a common tactic used to encourage people to share sensitive information.

Email address

Check the sender of the email. No genuine company will contact you from a personal email address, so that could include:

@Gmail.com

@Hotmail.com

@Aol.com

@Outlook.com

If the email is from any of those, this is a scam. You should also look for misspellings in the email address, or full stops hidden within the address.

Suspicious links

Don’t click on any links you receive in an email before you click them. On a computer, hold your mouse over the button or hyperlink to see where it will take you, or on mobile you can press and hold to see the URL.

Example of scam text message

Screenshot of phone with group text message

The official advice from Take Five is to:

Stop – Take a moment to think.

Challenge – Consider whether this email is genuine.

Protect – If you think you’ve been the victim of a scam, contact your bank or building society and report it to Action Fraud.

How to report a winter fuel payment scam message

If you’ve received a scam text, email, call or a knock at the door, there are lots of ways to report this:

If you’ve received a scam email, you can report this to report@phishing.gov.uk

Action Fraud is the UK's national reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime. If you’ve been contacted by a scammer, report it on their website or give them a call.