Important warning about scammers impersonating L&Q
HOMELIFE
November 2024
We have noticed that there has been a rise in activity from scammers impersonating L&Q or companies working on behalf of L&Q recently. You might have even seen letters, emails and texts that appear to be from us but are not.
What is happening?
Scammers send emails or texts pretending to be from L&Q, but they contain links to ‘malicious websites’. These look like genuine websites but are designed to steal your personal information. This is called ‘phishing’.
Examples of scam messages and what to do
Scammers might contact you pretending to represent L&Q or companies working on behalf of L&Q, aiming to deceive you into disclosing confidential and financial information about yourself. They might say:
- You’re owed money, and need your private information so you can prove this
- Some work needs to be done to your home urgently which wasn’t planned, and they need your private information to do this
- They need your bank details to make a payment or that they need other personal information.
If anyone asks you these questions, please hang up the phone, ignore any links in emails and don’t give them your details. Instead, please contact us.
There are other things you can look out for to help you avoid scams:
- Check email addresses and telephone numbers – if they don’t look like the usual addresses or numbers you receive L&Q messages from, they may be fake
- Check any web addresses before clicking on them - our main websites are lqgroup.org.uk and lqhomes.com
- Look at the spelling and branding in any emails or letters – if there are mistakes, poor grammar or the logos don’t look right it may be a scam.
If you have any suspicions about communications that claim to be from L&Q please contact us before responding.
How L&Q are keeping you safe
As well as reporting any scam communications to the Police when we discover them, we do lots of things to keep you safe when you’re dealing with us.
- We will never ask you for specific information or details like your payment card details, login information, username and other personal details via email.
- We will only contact you via email for information you have requested or need to be advised on.
- Remember, we’ll never ask you to provide your email together with your password unless you’re signing into your L&Q account.
- If we do need to take payments, we will only do so by phone once you have passed our security checks or through our secure portal which you access via our main website.
Our website
Our main websites are lqgroup.org.uk and lqhomes.com.
Our online account is where you can make payments and manage your account. This is protected by two-factor authentication, where you’ll need to provide a unique code in addition to your email and password when logging in.
Social media
If you see an offer, deal, promotion or competition on social media from L&Q on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll see a little blue symbol with a tick next to our name. If it doesn’t have that, it’s likely to be a fraudster.
You may also use our Facebook to ask us your questions or raise issues. Our Customer Services team will only ever communicate with you on our official Facebook page.
If you are messaged by a person or page different to the one above this isn’t us and you should let us know straightaway.
Other ways to know it’s us on Facebook:
- We only ask for your details to help resolve your issues via direct messages from our official page - we never use individual accounts to ask for information or share updates.
- The only L&Q employees who use our Facebook account to support customers are the Customer Service team and they only do this through our corporate account.
If in doubt...
If you receive a call, or see an email, text, social media post or a website from L&Q or a company that works with us, that you think looks suspicious please do not engage with it, respond with your information, or click on any links.
Instead, contact us.
Want to know more?
You can find out more information and useful tips on The Cyber Helpline, National Cyber Security Centre and Action Fraud,