Be careful - Winter Fuel Payment scam

We have been made aware of the start of criminal activity using both text messages and emails to try and steal bank details by playing on older people's concerns about the Winter Fuel Payment.

What is the Winter Fuel Payment?

Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free payment for households that include someone born on or before 22 September 1958 (for 2024/25) and, from 2024 onwards, receive  Pension Credit,  Universal Credit,  Income Support, income-based  Jobseeker’s Allowance  or income-related  Employment and Support Allowance, or  an award of Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit of at least £26 for the tax year 2024/25. 

It's designed to help you cover your heating costs in winter, with households receiving up to £300.

The Scam

The scam encourages you to click on a link to ‘update’ or ‘provide’ your details to receive the payment - these details will likely include asking for your bank account information.
Unfortunately the link doesn't go to the UK Government website, and certainly doesn’t have anything to do with Winter Fuel Payments.

Please be aware that these messages can arrive either as a SMS Text Message to your phone or as an email to your email account on your computer or your phone. 

The text message in the image below was actually received by one of our employees - fortunately they are not entitled to the Winter Fuel Payment, so the text immediately rang alarm bells as a potential scam.

Report to HMRC

Clicking unknown links puts your information at risk, don't let the cyber-criminals get your information. To steal the well-known public transport warning ‘see it, say it, sorted’. If you spot a scam, you can report it to HMRC’s dedicated phishing and scams team, details of which can be found on the GOV UK website (you can trust this link, we promise!).