A mum-of-three has warned others to beware the threat of cyberscams after her family lost around £1,000 in welfare payments.
Fiona Atkin, 37, said her husband Dell was tricked after he received a text purportedly from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) offering a "vehicle rebate".
After clicking a link and entering his personal details including National Insurance number and bank details on an apparently official government website, he later visited the site again and a warning flashed up to say it was bogus.
Dell rang his bank and discovered that his information had been used to file a fraudulent Universal Credit claim, reports the Liverpool Echo.
This has led to their usual benefits being frozen for over two weeks and the loss of around £1,000 in payments.
Credit card cloning, or "skimming" as it is sometimes called, is a technique whereby someone obtains your credit card details, copies them onto a bogus card and begins using the credit card.
Fiona, from Widnes said they cannot apply for Universal Credit anyway and receive legacy benefits such as tax credits because they have three disabled children.
She said they are keen for their payments of around £370 a week to restart and the Department for Work And Pensions has backed the go-ahead, but HM Revenue and Customs (HRMC) has said a "mandatory reconsideration" needs to be completed.
Fiona said the family have sought help from Jobcentre Plus, which had been "fantastic", and has also wrote to Derek Twigg MP.
However, she has claimed HMRC is delaying their benefit payments from starting again.
HMRC said it was following a protocol brought in last year to assess allegations of claimants being scammed.
Fiona said: “They’re not helping us HMRC.
“They’ve been diabolical.
“I’m in the middle of a mandatory reconsideration, that doesn’t mean they’re going to restart my claim.
"It’s happening all over the UK, it was happening to the elderly.
“It’s atrocious."
On the DVLA website the company said "it doesn’t send emails with links, so if you get one from someone pretending to be from them you should report it to Action Fraud then delete immediately".
An HMRC spokesman said: “If a claimant finds that someone has fraudulently made a claim for Universal Credit in their name, they should report it to the Department for Work And Pensions.
“The department will then investigate and if the customer is found to have been the victim of hijacked identity, any legacy benefits and tax credits that were stopped by the fraudulent claim will be reinstated.”
The spokesman added that a protocol was brought into effect to assess allegations of fraudulent claims following a spate of organised fraud last year.
