spurious emails from companies house

Email from companies house concerning a complaint being made

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I have received an email I think my be spurious from "Government Digital Service <[email protected]>" referring to a complaint being made about "corporate abuse". I think that this may be spurious as in order to obtain more details it is asking me to download a spreadsheet with macros enabled. Other than that the email looks quite genuine. There is no telephone number on the email, only a physical address for the insolvency service in Birmingham. I have therefore tried phoning Companies House direct but no one appears to be managing their switchboard today! Has anyone else seen one of these emails? 

Replies (15)

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By ireallyshouldknowthisbut
09th Dec 2020 17:00

Scam.

Edited to add

Apart from the fact its clearly a scam - you can see the location of the linked file if you hover your mouse over the link, and it aint on a .gov server!

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Replying to ireallyshouldknowthisbut:
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By Beancounting
09th Dec 2020 16:35

My thoughts entirely but the email address looks authentic, as is the overall appearance of email. Its not full of spelling or grammatical errors.

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Replying to Beancounting:
RLI
By lionofludesch
09th Dec 2020 16:55

It's not hard to dream up an email address that looks authentic.

They don't want you to email them. They want you to download the spreadsheet.

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RLI
By lionofludesch
09th Dec 2020 16:35

I vote scam.

Delete.

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By OldParkAcct
09th Dec 2020 16:37

Scam... had one appear this afternoon.

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By Cheshire
09th Dec 2020 16:55

Have you checked the Co House phishing pages for examples of current scams? Not foolproof I know.

If using outlook you could easily try drilling down into the email address to see if the sender is as shown at the top.

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By SXGuy
09th Dec 2020 17:29

Don't go by what the email address "looks like" you need to physically check the actual email address.

I could send you an email right now that says it's from hmrc it won't be.

Its as simple as that.

Pro tip. If anyone tries to get you to open an excel or word document unless you actually know it's from them, don't open it!

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Replying to SXGuy:
By SteveHa
11th Dec 2020 10:27

SXGuy wrote:

I could send you an email right now that says it's from hmrc it won't be.

Its as simple as that.

Not if he's anything like me that has the full headers displayed ;)

Quote:

Pro tip. If anyone tries to get you to open an excel or word document unless you actually know it's from them, don't open it!

Agreed!

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Replying to RoughCollie:
RLI
By lionofludesch
09th Dec 2020 19:01

Nigeria is very passé, these days.

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By bdean
10th Dec 2020 16:45

I have also received two of these emails this week. They are from an email address ending @companieshouse.gov.uk, which is the official Companies House website, so it could easily fool someone. This specific 'scam' isn't listed on the Companies House known scams page either.

As someone else has stated previously, the download links listed in the emails take you to some random, suspiciously-named website. I haven't opened the links but you can see the address before clicking on the link. I've forwarded the emails to Companies House phishing department.

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Replying to bdean:
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By Wanderer
10th Dec 2020 18:29

bdean wrote:

They are from an email address ending @companieshouse.gov.uk,

No they're aren't! Look at the source code.
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By sue.cooper
14th Dec 2020 14:05

I had one today - it got picked up by our email checker as spam but, as you say, it looks genuine and I questioned it.

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By Southgate
15th Dec 2020 13:37

I have just received an identical complaints email from Companies House exactly as you describe with a link to a macro enabled Excel spreadsheet. I also think it is a scam - all the more so as it comes into an email account that has been hacked before and from which I have never sent anything to Companies House.
David

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By SamFog
15th Dec 2020 17:06

Hi, i receive as well this email, but i live in France. I check the email [email protected] and it feel good maybe they hacked this adress?
I don't deal with any UK company. But i did a complain about Moneygram. People had receive this email had use moneygram services? Maybe the hacked their database.

Sorry for my english...

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By ohorad44
15th Dec 2020 22:15

I have had 4 of these this week, I managed to get through to Companies House call centre and the confirmed they are a scam
Ironically the first one came 15 minutes after an actual email from a PSC Case Manager at Companies House

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