Not a scam: the Met Police text you don’t want to ignore

The Met Police are sending text messages to thousands of people who may have been a victim of fraud as part of a fraud operation.

We always say to ignore as well as report scam messages.

Most people know this already.

Even when unsure, a quick ask in our Community Group and most people will call it out as a scam.

But 25,000 people will receive a text message from the Met Police (and it’s the real deal — it’s not a scam).

What’s happening? – Met Police text message

The police have taken down a series of phishing websites created by “LabHost” that were set up to defraud people.

To help link the con artist to the crimes, the Met Police are texting more than 25,000 people.

It’s suspected that these 70,000 have been scammed and conned of money.

Globally, the service has acquired 480,000 card numbers, 64,000 PIN numbers, and more than one million passwords through its scam sites.

If you get a text message from the Met Police over the next week, they will ask you to visit their website for more information and report any losses to fraud online.

What next?

This one-of-a-kind message will go out in the next few days.

If you get a message, report any fraud that’s happened. The Met Police will be able to use this as part of their case.

However, criminals may catch on and send out similar messages too! So, continue to be wary of any messages or calls you receive.

If you’ve been a victim of fraud, contact your bank as soon as possible and report it to Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk.

To help prevent fraud, be sure to be aware of how to stop it and stop it happening.

The background – huge fraud operation

The Met’s Cyber Crime Unit has uncovered a gang that allowed others to set up scam websites.

More than 40,000 fraud sites have been set up, and 2,000 people pay a monthly fee to keep them running, with an estimated 70,000 people who’ve entered their details into one of the sites.

These sites allowed the scammers to target people for email addresses, passwords and bank details.

Following a coordinated operation, in the UK alone, 17 people have been arrested, including in Manchester and Luton Airports and in Essex and London.

People who have reported the calls to Action Fraud have lost a combined £48 million in these spoofing scams. However, they believe this figure to be higher as many have likely not reported that they’ve last money.

Not the first time

In November 2022, the Met police sent out text messages to around 70,000 people as well.

This was due to a site called iSpoof.

What is iSpoof?

The iSpoof site allows you to disguise your phone number, so the person you’re calling doesn’t see who is ringing.

It’s simply spoof calling. Perhaps some may use it to prank friends, but scammers use it to steal money from normal people.

This scam can make you to think it’s your bank, energy company, the government, or even a number you recognise is calling.

The joy (for them) is that everything is secure and anonymous, and it’s impossible for us to find out where the number is coming from. Plus, they have auto-call robots that read out scripts (does anyone remember getting scam calls from HMRC?).

The website has since been seized and taken down by the FBI.