6:59 am, March 26, 2026
Scammers are attempting to hijack motor trade businesses with fake HMRC letters sent directly to car dealerships.
The letters are targeting the motor trade and aim to confuse business owners into visiting a fake website to harvest their sensitive information.
Experts believe the scammers are attempting to take control of motor trade VAT numbers and their Government Gateway accounts.
The criminals hijack VAT accounts and submit false claims, sweeping up any refunds and leaving the business owners to deal with the consequences.
The fake letters use the HMRC logo, official phone numbers, department information and a combination of threatening words to convince scared business owners to visit a fake website.
That fake site – hmrc.autos – is not a legitimate government portal as it does not use the standard .gov.uk suffix.
Car Dealer has investigated the letter and produced a special video, which you can watch at the top of this post, after receiving one for our Clever Car Collection used car business.
In it, we follow the links and learn what information the criminals are trying to steal and get advice on how to spot fake communications.
Using ChatGPT, we uploaded the letter and it flagged the official-looking document as a potential hoax and HMRC’s phishing team later confirmed it was not genuine.
Speaking exclusively to Car Dealer, VAT fraud investigator Ben Livings from HMRC, said: ‘We’re aware that fraudsters use multiple types of communication – email, phone, text – and they try to impersonate HMRC to trick people into providing financial or personal information.
‘They then use that information to commit financial or identity fraud.
‘It’s something we’re aware of, and HMRC works very hard to try and eliminate it. We work hard to close these people down.’
Livings also explained what the criminals can do if they get hold of sensitive information relating to your VAT account.
He added: ‘They’re likely trying to obtain your VAT registration number and specific company details.
‘One of the frauds we’ve seen is the hijacking of a VAT registration number.
‘Someone can use your VAT number to go out and trade. The liability for those sales would then fall to you, even though you haven’t carried out that activity.
‘It’s effectively a hijack.’
Last year, nine film producers came forward to say they’d be victims of a similar crime.
Screen Daily reported how a criminal was able to get hold of the production firm’s VAT number, lock them out of their account, and then make VAT repayment claims. Business owners can face penalties of up to 100% of the stolen tax.
Umesh Samani, chairman of the Independent Motor Dealers Association, and owner of Specialist Cars in Stoke, said he would have been caught out by the scam.
He said: ‘The letter looks so authentic. You read through it and everything about it feels right. And it’s clearly targeted at car dealers. Even the wording points towards autos.
‘As a business owner, nobody wants to get a letter from HMRC. That’s what immediately puts you on edge.’
Joel Combes, boss of motor trade legal firm Lawgistics, said this was a scam that his team had not heard of before.
‘It’s very unusual to see something in paper form,’ he said.
‘Most of the scams we come across are phishing emails. But with fraud, they need to make things look plausible. Getting a letter to your address, addressed to you, referencing your business – that does make it feel real.’
Livings said there is a list of letters HMRC sends out to business owners on the government website so you should check that if you receive something you feel is suspicious.
If you’re concerned about a text you should report it to 60599 and emails should be forwarded to [email protected].
Livings added: ‘You can also contact the relevant HMRC helpline — for VAT, that’s 0300 200 3700 — and they can guide you. And there’s also Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.
‘The key message is protect, recognise and report something you feel is suspicious.’
Watch our video about the scam at the top of this post.
