3 examples of possibly genuine companies affecting their brand trust & creating lots of avoidable contact.
I received a letter the other day. It was from a company called PCN Debt Recovery and Prosecution Service. It said I’d had a parking ticket in March at my local station and I owed them £90. Send your bank details and sign here. It smelled like the typical email from a prince in Africa asking me to claim my lottery winnings…… Phishing.
Nevertheless being a conscientious and curious person, I rang the non geographic number for payments several times. Each time it transfered to a foreign ring tone and was never answered. Eventually I rang Southeastern rail enquiries to see if it was a genuine company. They didn’t know of it and knew a company called Meteor run the car parks, not PCN. So it was probably a scam? They’d check it out and come back to me.
Meanwhile I finally got through to PCN so it existed at least. They couldn’t identify themselves as genuine. They had no process for this. They had no data to prove it. DVLA had given them my details based on my car registration number. Interesting who DVLA will give my private data to.
Anyway, they had no record of the ticket anyway and suggested it be dropped but I send them a note so it wouldn’t bite me later.
This morning I got a letter from Dan Westlake at Southeastern confirming nothing. It just referred me to Meteor. They obviously weren’t listening as they got my name wrong and answered a different question to the one I asked.
So is PCN a genuine company or a scam? I still don’t know. Do I trust Southeastern more or less than before?
I’ve had the same thing earlier in the year with a company called Assets Reunited apparently working for Aviva. It even had their logo on it. Their “phishing” letter said they were working for Aviva and had found £3000 that Aviva owed me. Just fill in your bank details and sign here. Hmmmm – would you? It has a number but a professional phisher would. I tried 2 routes to prove their id. I sent an email from the Aviva website form. They never replied. I emailed a contact in Aviva Life. They didn’t reply.
Is Assets Reunited a genuine company or a scam? I still don’t know. Do I trust Aviva more or less than before?
But the third example is different. HMRC sent me a letter saying we had our own business address wrong – doh talk about a dumb letter. It asked for all my details including bank accounts and a signature. Hmmm phishing? I phoned the number, got through and asked the lady to ID&V HMRC. Not in the least thrown by the question, she answered my address and last payments questions and we sorted it out. I asked my standard question of “what would you do if I gave you feedback?”. Instead of the usual “derrrrr” or “we don’t do that, send it to the website” she said she had a process with her team leader and would pass on my comments about looking like a phishing letter.
Do I trust HMRC more or less than before?
All are great examples of avoidable contact but let’s not start on that just now? Would your company pass an ID&V test? Would your outsourcers pass your ID&V test? Let me know your thoughts….
