No doubt taking advantage of the shortage of wood pellets in the UK and Ireland markets, imposters are creating fake websites and social media accounts advertising Balcas Energy wood pellets. We are strongly advising our valued customers not to purchase Balcas products from any other website other than: www.balcasenergy.com

Over the past year, scams have been increasing sharply, estimates say more than two-thirds of adults have been targeted by a scammer since January. As more pages pretend to be Balcas, we wanted to provide you with key information on how to prevent phishing.

Phishing is a popular form of cybercrime because of how effective it is. Cybercriminals have been successful in using emails, text messages, and direct messages on social media to get people to respond with their personal information. The best defense is awareness and knowing what to look for.

Here are some ways to recognise phishing in emails, social media, & websites:

Urgent call to action or threats – Be suspicious of emails or social media links that claim you must click, call, or open an attachment immediately. Often, they’ll claim you have to act now to claim a reward or avoid a penalty. Creating a false sense of urgency is a common trick of phishing attacks and scams. They do that so that you won’t think about it too much or consult with a trusted advisor who may warn you.

Tip: Whenever you see a message calling for immediate action, pause and look carefully at the message. Are you sure it’s real? Slow down and be safe.

First-time or infrequent senders – While it’s not unusual to receive an email or social media message from someone for the first time, especially if they are outside your organisation, this can be a sign of phishing.

When you get an email or message from somebody you don’t recognise or your platform identifies as a new sender, take a moment to examine it extra carefully before you proceed.

Spelling and bad grammar – Professional companies and organisations usually have an editorial staff to ensure customers get high-quality, professional content. A message with clear spelling or grammatical errors might be a scam. These errors are sometimes the result of awkward translation from a foreign language, and sometimes they’re deliberate in an attempt to evade filters that try to block these attacks.

Generic greetings – An organisation that works with you should know your name and these days it’s easy to personalize an email. If the email starts with a generic “Dear sir or madam” that’s a warning sign that it might not be your bank or shopping site.

Mismatched email domains – If the email claims to be from a reputable company, like Microsoft or your bank, but the email is being sent from another email domain like gmail.com or microsoftsupport.ru it’s possibly a scam. It is advised to be watchful for very subtle misspellings of the legitimate domain name. Like micros0ft.com where the second “o” has been replaced by a 0, or rnicrosoft.com, where the “m” has been replaced by an “r” and a “n”. These are common tricks of scammers.

Suspicious links or unexpected attachments – If you suspect that a message is a scam, don’t open any links or attachments that you see. Instead, hover your mouse over, but don’t click the link to see if the address matches the link that was typed in the message. In the following example, resting the mouse over the link reveals the actual web address in the box with the yellow background. Note that the string of numbers looks nothing like the company’s web address.

These are key ways that you can prevent being scammed by an imposter pretending to be Balcas.

Could we please ask, if you come across a website pretending to be Balcas, please report the page and contact us on our social media platforms or emailing energy@balcas.com

Thank You,

Balcas Energy