Phishing Email - National Insurance Number has been Disabled

Published: 23 April 2021

This email says that "GOV. UK has disabled a number of National Insurance Number due to numerous fraudulent activity reports in the era of BREXIT."

The fraudsters have tried to name every UK government department they can think of here (from "hmrc.co. uk" to "Jobcentre GOV. UK Plus"), and have even included the GOV.UK logo for good measure.

They then go on to say "a large number of National Insurance Numbers has been a target of identity theft in this period" and "you are now required to reactivate your NIN" (by clicking on the link (in bright red just in case you miss it)). Pretending they are acting in your interests is a common tactic of scammers.

Besides the grammar being incorrect in this email, to my knowledge it isn't usual to shorten National Insurance number to NIN.  Also, emails from government organisations tend to end in .gov.uk, definitely not hamanasu.jp, as here.

Remember, you will never be required to "reactivate" your National Insurance number.  You can forward phishing emails to report@phishing.gov.uk.