IT Officials Caution about Fake E-mails

According to officials from the Income Tax (IT) Department of India, scam e-mails posing as messages from the IT Office, are presently doing the rounds while aiming to ensnare innocent taxpayers, thus published Moneycontrol.com in news on December 1, 2011.

Addressing recipients as precious taxpayers, the fake electronic mail states that the IT department after examining the user's earlier years' tax fiscal clearances, has come to the conclusion that he's eligible for an amount of INR 36,120.25 as tax refund that's his accrued tax excesses. Subsequently, it requests the recipient to apply for the said refund so that the processing can be done in 7 working days. The e-mail also says that the IT department's time for learning of its tax refunds is appreciable as it enables for improving taxpayers' experience, adding that efforts for feeding correct information will only quicken the refund payment.

Furthermore, as per the e-mail, there can be delay in the refund when either the taxpayer applies beyond the last date of notification alternatively he provides erroneous account details.

Additionally, the e-mail directs its reader towards following one provided web-link inside the message for making the application, and thereby claiming the re-imbursement. But the web-link leads onto one Poland-based website that ultimately prompts him for also providing his online banking particulars, the income tax officers outline.

Meanwhile, officials at the IT department clarified that it didn't dispatch e-mails about reimbursements as well as didn't look for details about taxpaying individuals' banking information for executing any tax refund. Hence, people mustn't reply to such electronic mails, while in case they did, nobody but them, alone would be accountable for it and the risk it could entail, the officials cautioned.

Moreover, scammers' utilization of e-mails related to tax refunds for conning unwitting netizens off their bank details and hard-earned cash isn't anything new. Earlier during February 2010, one fake e-mail posing as a message from the IT Division circulated online, targeting little experienced people who paid taxes, for getting them to reveal personal bank and other financial particulars on promise that they'd receive a tax-reimbursement in twelve hours.

Related article: ID Theft Victims Will Double In Next Four Years

» SPAMfighter News - 12/9/2011