DVLA Scam Text Mesage?

[dr_gn]

All, about a month ago I taxed my car online. Payment didn’t go through immediately because the card couldn’t be verified for some reason. Contacted the bank and they said “don’t worry, it’ll go through tomorrow”. , which it did, and I got a confirmation letter.

Car is taxed according to the DVLA Vehicle Check website.

Just now I got a text message saying:

Your vehicle's tax has been invalidated. To continue driving legally, visit https://dvla.uk-update-form.com and update your information.

Presumably this is a scam - based on the “dvla.uk” website alone?

Thanks.

[Simpo Two]

When I click the link it says 'Unlock Your Potential Streamline your operations with cutting-edge solutions' so it's faker than fake thing. Always use the proper website.

[davek_964]

Of course it is

[dr_gn]

Simpo Two said:

When I click the link it says 'Unlock Your Potential Streamline your operations with cutting-edge solutions' so it's faker than fake thing. Always use the proper website.

Didn’t even try TBF.

Thanks.

[paul_c123]

Definitely, just from the website domain name - all of DVLA's pages are https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/driver... or something similar (with gov.uk as the top and next level).

[Mumsnet]

Registered just today:

[QuickQuack]

One of the things about scams is volume of messages/texts/emails vs hits, and chance. They send so many of a particular type of message, e.g., your tax is invalidated/has just run out etc., etc., that someone somewhere who receives that message will genuinely be in that scenario and will be tricked into clicking the link they've been sent. Same with messages purporting to be from your child travelling in France/Europe/Asia/somewhere exotic and has lost their phone,and needs help...

Yes, it's still 100% a scam.

There's an excellent BBC Radio 4 series called Scam Secrets that's worth a listen. Here's a link to the episode on the "Hello mum? I can't hear you" scam, but the rest are also worth listening:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002j74q?partner...

[Actual]

https://dvla.uk-update-form.com

Look at the dots.

The domain is NOT DVLA.

The domain is uk-update-form.com

The page is dvla

SCAM

[BertBert]

It's very scary that spotting the scam is reliant on people either not clicking on any link (which is what the OP did) or knowing how to interpret the URL (which the OP didn't).

[dr_gn]

BertBert said:

It's very scary that spotting the scam is reliant on people either not clicking on any link (which is what the OP did) or knowing how to interpret the URL (which the OP didn't).

As I said in the O/P:

“Presumably this is a scam - based on the “dvla.uk” website alone?”

I didn’t click the link since I’ve no idea where it could take me.

I suppose what caught me off-guard was the fact that my payment couldn’t be confirmed at the time of payment to DVLA, so this was the kind of thing I could have expected.

[Actual]

dr_gn said:

Presumably this is a scam - based on the dvla.uk website alone?

The website is not dvla.uk

The uk text is the first part of the domain name uk-update-form.com