GOC scam call alert

GOC scam call warning to registrants

The GOC has issued the following news alert today: 

We have been made aware that someone is calling GOC registrants ‘on behalf of the GOC’ trying to obtain personal contact information over the phone, possibly stating that they are conducting a survey. The caller had given the name of Lisa from ‘Clinical Standards Agency’, calling from a London-based landline number ending 0803.

Please be aware that these individuals are not employed nor appointed by the GOC to make these calls and we would strongly advise you not to provide this personal information. The GOC, nor those acting on our behalf, would never ask for your personal information to run a survey.

We have reported the event to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and to Action Fraud.

We would recommend that if you have passed on any data or you are concerned about this matter, to contact the ICO on 0303 123 1113 to report the name of the company and any further details.

If you have any further concerns please do not hesitate to contact us on 020 7580 3898.

Advice from the AOP

We will be sending members an email next week about how you can tell if it's really the AOP calling. In the meantime, here are some top tips for keeping your data safe: 

• If you have provided personal information, change all of your online passwords to the highest recommended security settings and do not use the same password twice

• If you receive a suspicious email, you should delete it straight away without accessing any web links or downloading any files

• If you aren’t sure if an email is legitimate once you’ve opened it, look for clues like language used – are they using unusual terms? Or are they calling you ‘Dear member’ rather than a personalised ‘Dear Mr Jones’ (as we do in our communications). You can also hover your mouse over the sender's email address, it will reveal the true source rather than what is displayed at first

• Check your social media accounts and make sure you do not have any personal information displayed, such as your date of birth

• If you have given a personal email address to someone you are not sure about, consider closing your email account down and opening a new one. If you do feel this is something you want to do, don't forget to tell us your new email address. The quickest and easiest way to do this is online at MyAOP but you can also contact our membership team