HMRC Warns Huddersfield Taxpayers of Fake Tax-Refund E-Mails

Residents of Huddersfield (West Yorkshire, UK) are being told to watch out for one particularly malicious e-mail campaign that's presently circulating on the Web. Examiner.co.uk reported this on September 14, 2010.

Evidently, it has been revealed that according to the text of the malicious e-mail, a recent computation shows that Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) owes the e-mail recipient money. Subsequently, the message provides a "refund form" and directs the recipient to fill it out within 24 hours from getting it. The purpose of all these is to primarily cause panic inside the e-mail reader's mind who unknowingly regards it a good opportunity for taking advantage of the tax refund offer the e-mail makes.

However, the form asks the recipient to provide personal information like the maiden name of his mother that the scammers could subsequently abuse for gathering the victim's bank details. Meanwhile, to sound authentic, the e-mail sender signs off with the HMRC address along with an embedded web-link.

Remarking about these fake HMRC e-mails, Senior Threat Researcher Christopher Boyd of Sunbelt Software who identified a same kind of e-mail stated that e-mails which claimed bogus tax refunds had become widespread since a long period. Itpro.co.uk published this during the 2nd week of September 2010.

Stated an HMRC Spokesman, the body constantly supervised customer records and systems for maintaining protection from spurious activity. Actually, the scammers kept changing their methods for harvesting sensitive information therefore HMRC, on a regular basis, provided the latest details about scams that came to its knowledge, the Spokesman added and Examiner.co.uk reported it on September 14, 2010.

As a result, HMRC advises everyone who gets these messages to first visit www.hmrc.gov.uk/security/index.htm and check if the e-mails are listed there.

Thereafter, the body recommends that users mustn't follow web-links inside dubious e-mails, and that they must forward such messages at phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk before deleting them permanently.

Finally, to remain safe from getting victimized with tax related scam e-mails, taxpayers inside Huddersfield as well as the surrounding areas are suggested that they should deploy security applications like anti-spam filters on their computers that are of high quality.

Related article: HMRC - Fake Refund E-mails Tricking Tax Payers

» SPAMfighter News - 9/23/2010