A new warning has been issued about a convincing scam email pretending to be from TV Licensing.
Action Fraud has said it has more than 5,000 complaints about the scam email in the last three months alone as criminals try to con people into passing them their details.
The emails try to trick people with subject lines like correct your licensing information and your TV licence expires today to convince people to open them.
TV Licensing warned that it never asks for this sort of infomation over email.
Some customers are receiving scam email messages saying they are due a refund or need to keep up their payments, it said in a warning to customers .
A link directs customers to a fake version of the official TV Licensing website which asks them to enter personal information and bank details.
If you receive a similar email message, please delete it.
How you can pay and get discount
While this email is fake, there are ways to pay less for a TV Licence.
As TV licences apply to addresses, not individuals, as long as someone qualifying for a discount lives at your address and the licence is in their name, the whole house benefits.
So who gets a discount? Well, older Britons don’t need a TV licence.
That means when you reach the age of 75, you can apply for a free over 75 TV Licence . They last 3 years and will be sent out provided you give them your national insurance number. In fact, if you’re 74, you can even apply for a short-term licence to cover up up until your 75th birthday.
Secondly, while it’s not free, but anyone who’s blind (severely sight impaired) can get half price TV licences . Again, this means the rest of the house is covered too.
If you’re renting, you don’t need a separate TV licence for your room if you have a relationship with the homeowner (and live in their main house) or a joint tenancy agreement but do need one if you have a separate tenancy agreement for just your room.
There are also other times you might be able to get money back on the £147 for example if you’re a student you can get a refund .
Action against fraud
Action Fraud has warned that it’s had more than 200 reports of a TV licence refund scam too, adding that TV Licensing would never email to tell you you’re due a refund.
Instead, the scammers are simply trying to get you to enter your bank account details.
The worrying thing is that there are actual refunds available for some Britons with £37 back a real possibility something scammers are trying to exploit.