Scam email fears prompt reassurance from CRT’s IT team

ALARM bells started ringing for boater and Towpath Talk contributor Colin Wareing when he received an email regarding his mooring renewal notice which had previously been sent by post. He writes:

I didn’t recognise the sender, DATALOAD3, and the address it came from was dataload3@britishwaterways. co.uk – there was also an attachment with it.

This looked suspicious as BW changed to the Canal & River Trust in 2012. I sent an enquiry to CRT customer services and contacted them via Twitter.

After sending information about the email to CRT, without the attachment and without opening it, their IT department eventually confirmed that it was a genuine email from the mooring team with my mooring renewal notice as the attachment.

I suggested that they update the email addresses as, especially in the current coronavirus climate, people may not open the email, or in fact delete it straight away, not trusting it – and then miss out on their prompt payment discount.

CRT confirmed they would do this, so hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem and they have asked: “If any customers aren’t sure that an email is genuinely from CRT they should contact our customer services team for confirmation.”

I eventually plucked up courage to open the attachment to find it was indeed my mooring renewal schedule.