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Saskatchewan Taxpayers Alerted of ‘Refund’ E-mail Fraud

Police has issued an alert to the residents of Saskatchewan (Canada) that an e-mail scam related to tax refund is currently hitting users' inboxes in the province.

With the ongoing tax season, e-mails are reaching people telling them that a reimbursement awaits them from the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA).

Actually, the scam e-mail asks the recipient to view a form within a given attachment or click on an embedded Web-link. However, when the user opens the attachment, he's asked for personal details like recipient's full name, birth date and Social Insurance Number, supposedly for getting the refund. The link gives a genuine look since it has content replicated from the original CRA website.

According to police, the CRA won't ever request any taxpayer to provide his private details via e-mail.

Often, when such details are obtained, they are misused for carrying out ID theft/fraud, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) indicated. Police are reiterating for the benefit of the public that such scam e-mails asking for username, passwords or other personal information mustn't be replied.

Furthermore, RCMP also wishes to say that any known organization will never operate in a questionable manner during its daily business operations. Indeed, companies that perform illegitimate acts rely on voice mail, fraudsters, names, addresses and faxes.

Therefore, in case anyone gets an e-mail that appears as a communication from an authorized company directing him to reply by following a link, then he must simply ignore it. It's better to directly call that company for verification or simply type in their URL address into the Web-browser and get the precise information.

The user can also e-mail the company and find out if he was indeed asked for the details. Sometimes, fake warnings are displayed on fraudulent companies' websites. So, whenever any suspicious offerings appear, the user must get in touch with the Better Business Bureau, check online as also notify the incidences to the RCMP.

Meanwhile, with March 2010 being the Month for Fraud Awareness, information on five particular trends taking place at Saskatchewan is obtainable from the website (www.sacp.ca/fraudawareness) of the Chief-of-Police of Saskatchewan. This information is to help consumers safeguard themselves against scams.

Related article: Scottish malware Distributor Confesses Crimes

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