Trading Standards warning

The letter is headed ‘Missing information about your VAT registration Number’ and is designed to look official.

The correspondence includes a form for the business to sign, in order to verify that their details are correct and to then return to an address in Hamburg.

The letter also contains a deadline for the submission of the information.

The small print states that by responding to verify their VAT registration number, businesses will be agreeing to a charge of £790 a year, for a minimum of three years, for entry onto the publishers website.

Trading Standards Officers originally issued a warning about this scam in March 2015 but are concerned that local traders may have already signed and returned the forms and may now be receiving demands for payment.

For further advice, or to report any scams or suspicious activity in the Western Isles, please contact Trading Standards on 01851 822694.