After being targeted ourselves earlier this month, WA Management have been made aware of a scam aimed at business owners by Parish UK.
Websites imitating official town and parish council websites, including information relating to the council, education, business, planning, property, heritage and farming, are created, after which emails are sent to businesses operating in the area prompting recipients to renew their ‘directory listing’ for a fee of £19 and confirm that their details are up-to-date.
However – these listings are not set up by users.
Details have been pulled by Parish UK, presumably either from Google or other directory listing sites, which have been used to populate the renewal page, giving the impression that the business has already filled out this form previously.
With businesses often using multiple directory websites to list their details, this tactic relies on its targets not remembering where they are listed, leading them to assume that they signed up for this directory in the past.
The email sent details the number of days until ‘expiry’, directing recipients to either renew or cancel the listing, with neither options employing any checks to ensure you are in fact from that business.
While the renewal page can be reached via the link in the email, any businesses in the listing that are due for ‘renewal’ can be accessed, edited and renewed by anybody via the website.
Is Parish UK a scam?
While the website does appear to genuinely list business information, there are a number of red flags regarding how Parish UK operates:
- Information is withheld in communications – it is not made clear that the user themselves did not create the original listing. Emails are worded to imply that an existing listing is about to expire and requires renewal, rather than the fact that the listing has been newly created.
- Pressure and a sense of urgency is applied, with a countdown to expiry used to introduce a time limit which may lead to hasty decisions being made.
- Other recipients have reported receiving multiple daily messages across a number of mediums.
- The website appears to be deliberately designed to mimic the gov.uk website, with layout, font, and colour choices replicated closely, when there is no affiliation between the two.
- Similar reputable websites such as Yell can be used for free.
What do the experts say?
The Society of Local Council Clerks (SLCC), professional body for local council clerks, have issued an alert warning members to keep an eye out for activity by Parish UK, identifying their modus operandi.
A number of parish councils have issued their own statements highlighting the activity as a scam, and reinforcing the message that parish council websites exist to serve their community and will not charge to to promote businesses, service providers and clubs.
On an episode of You and Yours on BBC Sounds from last year, reporter Shari Vahl found that businesses were being asked to renew listings just four months after the website had been created, and confirmed that it is not a legitimate parish schemes.
Additionally, parish councils themselves were also found to be targeted, with Parish UK requesting payment details when the councils were prompted to update their information.
When exploring the Parish UK website, Shari found a claim that the network is a Community Action Initiative – clicking on the link provided here takes you to a Local Government Association page. When approached for comment, the LGA, they informed Shari that they had told Parish UK to remove the link as this gave the misleading impression that they were involved, however the link still remains.
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