Scams and fraud

A member of staff will rarely need to enter your home, and we will usually call before sending someone to visit you.

But if you do receive a visit from someone who claims to work for us, you can check by:

• asking to see their identity card - all our staff carry photographic identification
• looking through a peephole or window to see if they are wearing a company uniform and arrived in a company vehicle
• calling us on 0345 600 4 600 to confirm their identity – our members of staff will always be happy to wait outside.

If you have answered the door and suspect they do not work for us, you should:

1. shut your door and lock it straight away, while also locking your back door
2. call us on 0345 600 4 600 as soon as possible to confirm their identity
3. if we are unable to confirm their identity, call the police immediately on 999.

Our Priority Services register is designed for customers with additional needs who may need extra help.

If you sign up, you can set up a password and we’ll use it every time we visit you.

This offers vulnerable customers additional protection against distraction burglaries.

The call is most likely a scam if they:

• demand you make water bill payments
• pressurise you for your card or banking details
• ask for an immediate payment.

We would never call you and demand you provide your details over the phone.

Do not provide them with any information and end the call immediately.

You should then contact us so that we can investigate, and then report the call to the National Cyber Security Centre.

If we don’t have your mobile phone number, we may send a Text to Landline (TTL) message to your home or work telephone number.

These messages are introduced by the following phrase: “You are about to hear an automated message from Wessex Water”.

The service provider we use will then ask you to press numbers to confirm you’ve received the message. However, this is not a requirement and you do not need to do this.

All genuine text messages from us will have ‘WessexWater’ as the sender information.

You may also receive texts from ‘BristWater’ if we only provide your sewerage services and they provide your water supply services.

If we send you a link via text message, it will always start with 'wsx.mobi/'.

We use text messages to inform customers of water supply interruptions or incidents that could affect them. We may also respond to you via text message if you report a problem to us.

We never ask customers for bank details or to make payments by text.

Do not provide them with any information or click any links.

You should contact us so that we can investigate, and then report the text message to the National Cyber Security Centre.

Fraudulent emails might include our logo and initially appear to be from us when they are not. These are becoming more and more sophisticated.

You should be wary if there appears to be a sense of urgency – for example, the threat that unless you act immediately your account may be closed.

We use a number of email addresses. These include:

• customer.services@wessexwater.co.uk
• donotreply@wessexwater.co.uk
• noreply@wessexwater.co.uk
• noreply@bwbsl.co.uk
• customer.relations@wessexwater.co.uk
• operational.enquires@wessexwater.co.uk
• do-not-reply@notifications.co.uk
• enquiries@searchlightcollections.co.uk
• wessex.water@groundwork.org.uk
• billingportal@wessexwater.co.uk
• overflows@wessexwater.co.uk
• communitypartners@wessexwater.co.uk
• careers-noreply@ytluk.co.uk

Check if the email has come from one of our addresses.

If it hasn’t, do not provide them with any information or click any links.

You should contact us so that we can investigate, and then report the email to the National Cyber Security Centre.

Most of the website links we will ask you to access will include:

• wessexwater.co.uk
• wsx.mobi
• careers.ytluk.co.uk
• apply.ytluk.co.uk

Check if the URL belongs to us and if it doesn’t, do not click it.

You should contact us so that we can investigate, and then report the website to the National Cyber Security Centre.

If you think a website is a scam after accessing it, do not click any more links or share any personal information.