NSA warns that scammers and spammers appear particularly active

The New Year seems to have arrived with a particular influx in irritating spam and scam emails, some of them more serious than others. NSA has identified three over the Christmas break/into January for members and supporters to be aware of.

Firstly, any email from an NSA staff member (and most regional officeholders) will be from an address ending @nationalsheep.org.uk. Please ignore and delete any emails appearing to be from a staff member but not from that address. The problem seems to be limited to NSA Chief Executive Phil Stocker at the current time, with fake emails using his name but coming from an email address ending in @gmail.com.

The other two hoaxes are linked to NSA events. One is a seemingly harmless situation involving a company called ‘10 Times’ contacting people to update them on whether NSA events (particularly the NSA Breed Society Forum) have been cancelled or not. To be clear, NSA has no connection with this company and has not engaged it to promote any events. The NSA Breed Society Forum, as always, is planned for the first Thursday in May – but whether this will be an online event or physical meeting has yet to be decided, given the ongoing coronavirus restrictions.

While the first two problems are new, the third is an issue that rears its head at semi-regular intervals in various forms. Typically, companies and organisations that have supported NSA sheep events in the past receive a pre-populated form reportedly offering free advertising in an 'International Fairs Directory' or 'Expo Guide' – see example below. The form does not carry an NSA logo but instead has an address at the bottom for a company registered in either Mexico or, more recently, Costa Rica. While the suggestion is that advertising is free, the small print says anyone returning the form (using the freepost address and/or envelope provided) will be charged in the region of €1,200 per year for three years 'or it’s monetary equivalent in a currency chosen by the publisher'. Any correspondence from an International Fairs Directory, Expo Guide or any using a non-UK address should be assumed to be fraudulent.

Helen Davies, NSA Sheep Event Organiser, says: "Any correspondence NSA sends out regarding its sheep events is clearly identified with our name, logo and full address (including the postcode). If you receive anything that is not clearly branded as coming from NSA please ignore it. It is very frustrating that these fraudsters continue to use our name to try and fool people and we wish there were a way to stop them. Please do not be taken in by the scam and always look out for the NSA logo on all correspondence."