An expert on scams has shared key red flags to look out for to indicate a fake Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) email.
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00:00The fake one there as you can see we've got the big stamp on it. There's one that's like that and there's another one which looks a bit like that there and these have been doing big numbers so just so we're absolutely clear these are 100% scam emails and they're just using the DVLA's kind of branding to try and make them as convincing as possible and basically they're phishing emails so they're trying to extract personal information, financial information from people who click through and the DVLA have got figures for 2024 that said they had 20,000 people get into
00:29touch about this kind of fraudulent stuff and bear in mind very few people actually report this stuff so the number's probably far far greater. Most important thing to say straight off the bat if you get an email like that try not to panic try not to feel like you need to take action straight away just take a breath because what these kinds of scam emails are intended to do is to get you into what's called an emotionally hot state which is where you kind of feel that like heat that kind of tingling sensation around your ears you feel a bit panicked like you need to do something
00:59straight away that is when you're not going to be using your rational mind which you would normally use to make kind of important financial decisions things like that which is exactly what these scammers want they want to get you off balance ready to do something that you wouldn't normally do right so the way they make you feel emotionally hot is by using the language of pressure it works yeah exactly urgency to make you feel uncomfortable to make you feel like you've got to do something so the first one we can flag in these emails
01:29is the right to make you feel like 72 hours from notice date which obviously sounds very serious you know you've got to take action in the next kind of three days sort of thing the other one also said do not delay resolve this today which to me sounds a little bit more like the language of a bailiff than the DVLA or something it's pretty threatening so the key thing I think to remember here is that it's actually very easy to check whether or not your vehicle is taxed you can use the government's reg check service which is basically where you can just go into a search engine
01:59the second top search result I think but basically have a look you know because if your car is taxed or not you know you just need to check essentially rather than having one of these emails panic you into trying to take some kind of action