Category: Announcements

Come and join us at the movies on 24th June, 2022! For full details, please click on the link below:-

MOVIE NIGHT

Unfortunately, we will always be plagued with swindlers, fraudsters and scammers who are only too keen to relieve us of our well-earned cash. They also have absolutely no conscience and are more than happy to target the elderly.

Council Rebate
The latest scam that I am aware of, is a telephone call, claiming to be from your local authority council asking for your bank details so that they can pay you the fuel rebate. If you pay your council tax by standing order, direct debit or bank transfer, then the council already have your bank details and will automatically pay your rebate into your account, by mid-May. If you do on-line banking, check that this payment is made.

Parcel Delivery
You will receive an email stating that there is a parcel due for delivery which has an insufficient amount of postage and cannot be delivered until the additional postage is paid. This is usually a very small amount, there is a link for you to click on which leads to a very realistic web site asking for your bank details. This will never happen from any delivery company.

TV Licence
Again, an offer of a refund as you have paid too much on your licence, not surprisingly they are asking for your bank details, again the BBC will never do this.

Cold Telephone Calls
If anybody cold calls you and asks for your bank details never under any circumstances give any information out. Tell them what you think of them, hang up and, if you can, block the number. Often a call on a mobile will show as being scam, just don’t answer and block the call.

Never give your bank details to anyone you don’t know or do not trust and never give your bank card PIN number to anyone you don’t trust implicitly. Likewise your PIN number should never be written down. When drawing cash out of an ATM then always cover your hand as you enter your PIN number.

This month on Wednesday 13th April at 2.00 pm it is our AGM. This will be the first half of the meeting and after the break we welcome our guest speaker, Bryan Gladstone, with an interesting and somewhat intriguing talk called ‘My mum was a GI Bride’.

The AGM or annual meeting is a requirement of our constitution and is a means for the committee to share information with the membership, review the annual accounts and when required to vote on any proposals or for membership of the committee.

This year six of the twelve members of the committee, who from 2016 have each served the maximum time of six years allowed in our constitution, are stepping down.

On your behalf I would like to extend our thanks to:
Christine Berrill: Treasurer Siobhan Lee: Groups Coordinator
Dianne White: Speaker Seeker Philip Attenborough: Equipment Manager
Barrie Saunders (who was also Chair from 2018 to 2020) David Rose: Chair

This is quite a high turnover but it is balanced by the continuity of the remaining six committee members. Change can sometimes be threatening but I believe it is something that should be embraced rather than feared. Only with change will u3as be able to lay the foundations for future long-term success.

We are fortunate to have members who have come forward and volunteered to join the 2022 to 2024 committee. They are all willing and prepared to take on various roles and responsibilities. Please come along and cast your vote.

This year also marks the retirement of Geoff Cree as the scrutiniser of the annual accounts and we thank him for the many years he has done this. We are also fortunate that John Twells has volunteered to take over this role from Geoff.

One volunteer, who has served well beyond six years, as his position is outside the committee, is our Newsletter Coordinator, Steve Lawrence. We wish to thank Steve for his support and professionalism in transforming the individual contributions into our quality newsletter, all within a tight timescale, each month.

Thanks are also extended to Graham Daft from the Methodist Church for his long service printing the newsletter paper copies which are primarily for non email members.

Best Wishes to you all and we hope to see many of you at the AGM this month.

David Rose, Chair

The staff and trainees at Rumbletums wish to extend their thanks to all members of Hucknall u3a for their valued support in the crisp recycling venture.

TV Licence scam
I have been contacted by two of our members who have recently experienced a current scam around TV Licences. Fraudsters are sending out fake TV Licence refund emails that lead to convincing looking websites in a bid to steal a would be victim bank account details. They claim that TV Licensing have been trying to get hold of recipients regarding an overpayment refund or that due to invalid account details a credit was not possible. The refund links lead to cloned TV Licensing websites that are designed to harvest bank account and credit card details.

TV Licensing’s tips for spotting a scam email:

• Check the email contains your name – TV licensing will always include your name in any emails they send you.

• Check the email subject line – anything along the lines of “Action required”, “Security Alert”, “System Upgrade”, “There is a secure message waiting for you”, and so on, should be treated as suspect.

• Check the email address – does the email address look like one that TV Licensing use? For example donotreply@tvlicensing.co.uk. Look closely as often the address may be similar.

• Check for a change in style – often the scammers will take the real emails and amend them. Look out for changes in the wording used, especially if it seems too casual or familiar.

• Check for spelling and grammar – are there any spelling mistakes, missing full stops or other grammatical errors?

• Never provide details by email – TV licensing will never ask you to reply to an email and provide bank details or personal information.

To report a fraud and receive a police crime reference number call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040

A phone call scam
The other member reported scam is a phone call attempt to get your bank details because:
‘You have overpaid on your electrical appliance breakdown protection policy’. It goes on ‘Please let us have your bank details in order that we can refund £100.00’. Put the phone down and block the caller.

David Rose