Scam vaccine message?

[Popfan]

My 81 year old dad has been sent a text today supposedly from the NHS / his surgery inviting him to make his vaccine appointment. It has a link to click on. He is pretty savvy and hasn't clicked on it and plans to phone the surgery on Monday to check it all out. Just wondered if anyone could shed a light on what a genuine text actually looks like? Thanks.

There’s not a national booking system at the moment, so invites are being done by individual surgeries, using different kinds of software and wording. It’s possible they have set up some kind of automated way of booking, but then again you’re right to think it could be a scam. Agree with ringing on Monday - although they might well answer the phone today, depending on whether they do extended hours, so might be worth trying today?

Can you post the text of the message? I think I have quite a good scam radar! (And work in the NHS).

Thank you @Wigeon. The surgery is closed today - he has tried to phone them. I don't have the wording on the text as he just read it to me over the phone. The name of the surgery was mentioned. However, he has had texts from the surgery before and this hasn't come up on the same thread of messages. The link also had lots of random letters and numbers at the end of it which doesn't seem quite right.
It would be good to know what a genuine one actually looks like!

Here is an article that shows a scam message conversation.which.co.uk/scams/scam-nhs-covid-vaccine-text-message

I get text messages from my GP sometimes, but they never mention the name of the surgery. They come from NHS-NoReply and they always say to phone your GP or visit the website.

Thank you. It seems it was genuine, he has had a phone call and is booked in for next week!

Oh brilliant! 👍