UK Scam Alerts, October 2026
October has opened with a fake parking fine that looks almost exactly like GOV.UK, and a pension con aimed squarely at women who've been waiting years for news about their state pension. Neither is clumsy. Both are designed to catch you on a busy day when the message seems to fit something you half expected.
Five to know about so far.
2 October, fake fine texts, WASPI pension cons, and more
1. Fake parking penalty charge texts
A text arrives saying you've got an unpaid penalty charge notice from your local council. Pay within 28 days or you'll get a charge certificate. After that, it says, you could be taken to court or even banned from driving.
The link goes to a copy of GOV.UK that's very good. Right logo, right fonts, right layout. It asks for your car registration first, which makes it feel like a real lookup, then asks for your card details to settle the fine.
Here's the giveaway. Councils don't send PCNs by text. Ever. A genuine penalty charge notice comes through the post, and the DVLA doesn't chase payments by text either. If you're not sure whether you've got a real fine outstanding, ring the council on the number from its own website.
Don't click. Forward the message to 7726 and delete it. If you've already typed in card details, call your bank straight away. Flagged by Which? on 30 September, and the DVSA has warned about the same trick before.
2. Fake WASPI pension compensation sites
Several websites are claiming the DWP has announced compensation for women born in the 1950s who were hit by the state pension age changes. They say you could be due up to £2,950 or £3,000 and invite you to check your entitlement. One was dressed up as a "Martin Lewis WASPI Calculator".
There is no compensation scheme. The government hasn't announced one, and no official site for claiming it exists. If that changes, the announcement will come from the UK Government itself, not a third-party page with a calculator on it. Martin Lewis has said publicly that these sites are fake.
This one is cruel because it's aimed at people who have been campaigning for years and genuinely want good news. A woman in Derbyshire handed over her bank details and a copy of her birth certificate before she realised. WASPI chair Angela Madden called it "utterly shameful", and she's right.
Don't fill in any form asking for bank details or ID documents. For real updates, check the WASPI campaign's own site. If you've already sent details, call your bank and report it on 0300 123 2040 (Report Fraud, which replaced Action Fraud earlier this year). Also reported by Financial Reporter, MoneyWeek and GB News.
3. SIM-swapping
This one doesn't need you to click anything. A criminal rings your mobile network, pretends to be you, and asks for your number to be moved to a new SIM. Once it's done, your calls and texts go to their phone instead of yours.
That includes the one-time passcodes your bank sends. With those, they can reset your online banking password and lock you out. It's the same technique that was used in the M&S and Co-op cyberattacks in 2025, and Which? has named it one of the most convincing scams of 2026.
The first thing you'll notice is your phone losing signal for no reason, at home, somewhere it normally works fine. Don't assume it's a mast problem. Borrow another phone and call your network immediately.
Two things make this much harder to pull off. Move your important accounts (email, banking where it's offered) onto an authenticator app like Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator instead of text codes. And ask your mobile provider to put a verbal security password on your account, so nobody can request a SIM swap without it.
4. Fake Netflix, Disney and McAfee renewal emails
A batch of phishing emails is going round pretending to be from streaming services and security software. The Netflix one says your account is suspended because your billing couldn't be "validated", and you've got 48 hours to fix it. The Disney version says there was a problem renewing your subscription. The McAfee one claims your protection has expired and gives you "24 hours to maintain your protection".
All three link to fake pages that want your card number or your login.
Streaming services don't cut you off after a single email. You'd get several reminders, and you'd see a message inside the app too. If one of these worries you, open a new tab, type the real address in yourself and log in there. If there's a problem, it'll show on your account. As for the McAfee one, plenty of people who get it have never had McAfee in their lives.
Forward anything like this to report@phishing.gov.uk. Covered in the latest round-up of scam alerts from Which?.
5. Invoice diversion fraud
You're about to pay a supplier, or your solicitor ahead of completing on a house, and an email arrives saying their bank details have changed. Could you use the new account for this payment?
Sometimes the email comes from a lookalike address. Often it comes from the supplier's real account, which has been hacked. That's the nasty part. It sails through spam filters, it's in the same thread as your earlier messages, and it reads exactly like the person you've been dealing with.
The National Crime Agency and City of London Police put out a warning this year after a run of cases, and UK Finance puts losses through this route at over £101 million. A house deposit is often the biggest single payment someone ever makes, which is exactly why they target it.
Before you send money to new bank details, phone the supplier or solicitor on a number you've used before. Not the number in the email, because that may be the fraudster's too. If you run a business, set up two-person sign-off for payments above a certain amount. And if money has already gone, ring your bank immediately. Speed matters: UK Finance says 48% of losses from this kind of fraud were returned to victims in 2025.
If it's already happened
If you've clicked something you shouldn't have, entered card details, or sent money to an account you're now unsure about:
- Call your bank right now. Use the number on the back of your card. Most UK banks have 24/7 fraud lines, and the sooner they know, the better your chances.
- Change your passwords. Email first, because that's usually the one criminals use to reset everything else.
- Run a full scan with Windows Defender or your antivirus. See my post on whether you actually need antivirus for what I recommend.
- If your phone lost signal unexpectedly, call your mobile network from another phone and ask whether your SIM has been moved. Then check your bank accounts.
How to Report Scams
- Scam text → forward to
7726(spells SPAM, free on all UK networks) - Scam email → forward to
report@phishing.gov.uk - HMRC scam → forward to
phishing@hmrc.gov.uk - Scam website → report at ncsc.gov.uk
- Fraud of any kind → Report Fraud on
0300 123 2040or reportfraud.police.uk
Reporting takes a couple of minutes and it does help. Fake sites like the WASPI ones get taken down because people pass them on, and every text forwarded to 7726 helps the networks block the sender for everyone else.
Nobody who falls for one of these is daft. The parking fine site fooled people who check things carefully, and invoice fraud catches finance teams who do this for a living. If you're worried something has got onto your computer, my virus removal service in St Helens means a proper check rather than a guess.
Mark has been fixing computers since the late '90s and went self-employed in 2008. Based in St Helens since 2013, he works evenings and weekends from his home in Laffak — friendly, affordable repairs for PCs, laptops, and Macs. See reviews on Google
Think you've been scammed? Or had someone on your PC?
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- Joe Gempton, via Google