Surge in Tax Phishing Scams Purports

In a revelation published by the HM Revenue and Customs or HMRC (UK's customs and tax department) or popularly known as Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, tax payers has been made aware of the surge in phishing e-mails masquerading HMRC, as reported in publicservice.co.uk on September 14, 2011.

According to the Department, fake reports or fake emails witnessed a surge by 300% over the past year that were enabled with a single click through a virtual link, a much replica of the original HMRC, as reported in the Official HMRC website.

A visit to the fraudulent site prompts the victimized to provide all personal details pertaining to their credit card and debit card, reason enough to gain an access to their personal accounts.

As a result, the government has amended that the bank accounts of people are hacked and might be robbed and their personal information might be sold to criminals as well greeting future insecurity.

By August 2011 itself, 24,000 e-mails were reported to be hacked and HMRC unveiled of shutting down around 100 scam websites every month.

According to the Director of HMRC Online and Digital, Joan Wood, customers due a tax refund are contacted personally through post. These people are never intimated through telephone calls, e-mails or external companies under any circumstances. Further, he recommended that in any case, if any mails are received bearing HMRC address, they should intimate the department immediately at phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk before deleting the e-mail from their mail box, as published in the website islandpulse.co.uk on September 14, 2011.

However, Wood held the view that the awareness about this scam has enabled an augment in the report.

Moreover, Woods assured people that HMRC will do every bit to ensure the protection of personal details for people receiving such fraudulent e-mails and will work closely with law agencies towards proper enforcement of law to provide justice to the victimized.

Over the period of last two years, scam networks have done away from countries including Mexico, the UK, Austria, South Korea, the USA, Thailand, and Japan.

However, HMRC recommended customers to go through the advice published in the official website of HMRC and also check if the fraud e-mail received by them is included in the site or not. If in any case, the e-mail is enlisted in the website, people should further try to follow the advice provided in the website www.getsafeonline.co.uk. for protecting their personal information. But, at the same time, they should also take forward the matter to their bank/card issuer to the earliest possibility.

Related article: Surge in Spam attack

» SPAMfighter News - 9/23/2011