The Government Legal Departments (GLD) is warning that its general enquiry number (020 7210 8500) and switchboard number (020 7210 3000) 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 GLD or HMRC, with the GLD enquiry line number showing in the caller ID. The callers are usually very aggressive on the phone, threatening members of the public that if they do not pay a certain amount of money, the police will arrest them. The calls are NOT being made by GLD or HMRC and are calls being made from numbers that have been effectively hijacked by fraudsters.

The GLD has confirmed that they never make outbound calls from their enquiry line or switchboard number. The GLD will also never ask you for your bank details or to pay money over the phone. If you receive a call of the type described above, please hang up and report full details of the scam by email to: phishing@hmrc.gov.uk. When making your report, please ask for it to be associated with report reference NFRC200803859141. 

If you’ve been a victim of a scam and suffered financial loss, you should call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 immediately. Recipients of suspicious emails claiming to be from HMRC should also forward details to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk and suspicious texts to 60599.