Concerns about ‘convincing’ Halifax scam email but bank says message is genuine | Personal Finance | Finance

A concerned person raised the alarm with Halifax after they received what they thought was a scam email.

Twitter user @ReebexWilson contacted the bank after they had an email allegedly from the bank about their variable rate interest rate going up, including a screengrab of the message, that included the bank’s logo.

They said: “This has probably got to be the most convincing scam I have seen. As far as I’m aware I don’t have a savings account with @HalifaxBank”

They also said the message had come from the email address info@emails.halifax.co.uk.

But the bank responded to confirm the email was genuine but there had been a mistake in sending it out.

The bank said in response: “That looks to be a genuine email, not a scam. If you don’t hold an account yourself, and the postcode info at the top of the email doesn’t match your own, it’s likely one of our genuine customers has simply provided your email address to us in error.”

The original email included a message at the top: “To help you spot a genuine email from us, we’ll always greet you with your title and last name, and we include part of your postcode.”

Santander recently issued advice after a person received a number of fake text messages purportedly from the bank.

A person had received fake texts asking them to confirm payments from their account were genuine.

Santander told they person the bank would “never ask our customers to click on a link via email or text”.

Scammers often contact people pretending to be from a bank or another organisation to try and dupe them into sending over personal or banking information.

Fraudsters also sometimes call people pretending to be from a bank to try and get them to send over money or hand over information.

Many banks are signed up to 159, a phoneline that a person can call if they get a suspicious call allegedly from their bank, to be put through to the official contact phoneline for the bank.

These banks can currently be reached on the 159 service:

• Barclays
• Bank of Scotland
• Co-operative Bank
• First Direct
• Halifax
• HSBC
• Lloyds
• Metro Bank
• Nationwide Building Society
• NatWest
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Santander
• Tide
• TSB
• Ulster Bank.

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