HMRC Warns of Tax Rebate E-Mail Scams

As the deadline for renewing tax credits comes near, UK Government's Tax Department, HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) is cautioning citizens paying taxes about a probable wave of fraudulent phishing e-mails aiming to attack them, moneyhighstreet.com reports on June 16, 2011.

Typically, the electronic mails notify recipients that a tax refund is due for them, while they also display a web-link that leads onto an exactly same HMRC site though not real as it asks the user to fill in his debit/credit card particulars.

Having grabbed such personal information, the scammers subsequently exploit them for stealing funds out of the accounts of the victimized users alternatively, sell the information to other well-arranged groups of cyber-criminals, HMRC explains.

Remarking about the aforementioned phishing assaults, Director of HMRC Online and Digital, Joan Wood stated that her department received complaints of over 46,000 dubious e-mails starting April 2011, while more than 150 scams had been busted. Somersetcountygazette.co.uk published this on June 16, 2011.

Wood further stated that HMRC presently ever got in touch with consumers who were entitled for a tax rebate solely through postal correspondence.

According to her, HMRC didn't utilize e-mails, telephone calls or intermediary organizations within such circumstances. She added that incase anybody got an e-mail asserting it was from HMRC, he should forward the message to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk followed with erasing it completely.

Notably, HMRC investigates phishing assaults in detail as well as functions jointly with other bodies of law enforcement both inside Britain and overseas.

Indeed, according to the tax department, during the past 2-years, there've been shutdown of scam networks within several countries, including UK, USA, Mexico, Austria, Japan, South Korea and Thailand.

However, HMRC advised certain easy security tips such as users mustn't ever follow web-links or websites provided inside dubious e-mails as also never view attachments since they might take onto phishing websites.

Eventually, it isn't merely in UK that taxpayers are being targeted with phishing scams related to tax refunds. During April 2011, the Income Tax Department of India issued the same kind of alert post receipt of complaints that tax-refund phishing e-mails reached many people's inboxes.

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

» SPAMfighter News - 27-06-2011

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