We have been made aware that some Attorney General’s Office (AGO) phone numbers, including the public enquiry number (020 7271 2492) are being used by fraudsters to try and extract money from members of the public.
In most of the reported cases, the fraudsters claim they are calling from the AGO or HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), with the AGO public enquiry number showing in the caller ID. The callers have asked members of the public to pay a certain amount of money to either drop criminal charges or pay outstanding tax. The calls are NOT being made by the AGO or HMRC.
The AGO will never call you and ask you for your bank details or to pay us money over the phone.
If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from the AGO and asking for money, we ask you to hang up and report full details of the scam by email to: phishing@hmrc.gov.uk
Please include the following information which will help with the investigation:
- date of the call
- phone number used
- content of the call
If you’ve been a victim of a scam and suffered financial loss, report it to Action Fraud
Please also forward suspicious emails claiming to be from HMRC to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk and texts to 60599.
We have reported the scam to HMRC’s Cyber Operations team, which works with the telecoms providers to close down numbers used in scams such as this one, and to block some of the most credible numbers from being spoofed.
