Email scammers attempt to dupe public with Supreme Court subpoena

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By Katie King on

The message tells recipients they’re invited to court ‘because of crime commitment’

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The UK Supreme Court used its official Twitter account to warn the public against sham subpoena emails purporting to be from the highest court in the land.

The court informed its followers after it was alerted to the scam at around lunchtime yesterday. Littered with spelling errors, the email tells its readers “you’re invited to the law court by the judge because of crime commitment”. The scammer does not state which one of the eleven justices “the judge” is.

While the fake Supreme Court email is, well, not very convincing, the court has stressed on its website that it does not issue ‘subpoenas’ for criminal cases and only sends orders to parties to proceedings. So if you see this email, don’t click on any links and delete it immediately. A Supreme Court spokesman said:

Spotting such malware emails can sometimes be difficult and it is reprehensible for perpetrators to seek to use court insignia to trick vulnerable recipients. Quite apart from the misspellings, most UK courts rarely refer to ‘subpoenas’ and, as a final court of appeal, the Supreme Court never hears evidence from witnesses. It is important to stress that no Supreme Court system has been breached. We have reported the emails to the relevant authorities.

This isn’t the first time the profession has fallen foul to internet wrongens.

In December, Legal Cheek reported online scammers had targeted a top City law firm partner in an attempt to dupe the public (and their bank balances). According to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), a number of people received emails claiming to be from Withers lawyer Matthew Woods. He was in no way connected to the emails.

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