A report has been recieved by Tewkesbury Borough Council regarding a potential scam targeting business owners. Please see below.
The individual had received what appears to be a spam email from an email address called ‘Tewkesbury Parish’ outlining that they were contacting her to enquire about a business listing, with a payment request of £30. The email has been sent to over 4,000 recipients.
The scam is targeted at parish (and town) councils rather than borough and districts.
The web address for this ‘network’ is https://parish.uk/ and they have a support address https://parish.uk/support/ and service-support@parish.uk. There is a web address of https://tewkesbury.parish.uk/parish-council. When you go on this page there is information about the council, education, business, planning, property, heritage and farming.
The concern is that the website looks very official, designed to add a layer of legitimacy to the scam. Spam emails are sent to businesses and then payments requested for the business listings. The give away is that it does not use the official gov.uk suffix.
A quick google of ‘find my parish scam’ shows that there have been a large number of parish councils that have been affected by this. See a publication re this here https://www.leightonbuzzardonline.co.uk/news/crime/warning-over-bogus-council-emails-targetting-small-businesses-in-central-bedfordshire-4548640
Grateful if you would consider raising awareness and I would therefore ask that you consider comms with our Councillors and forwarding this to all town and parish councils so that they can alert their residents / consider communications also.