IRS Cautions Taxpayers of Recent Email Scam

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cautioned taxpayers of the recent editions of an email scam designed to mislead people that the agency's Criminal Investigation division is keeping a vigil on them, according to news published by Wbir on May 31, 2007.

The email claims IRS Criminal Investigation as its sender and falsely maintains that the receiver is under inquiry for filing a fake tax return towards the California Franchise Tax Board.

The email direct users towards a link or an attachment for finding out further details regarding the complaint. However, cautioned IRS, they should not follow the instructions as the link as well as the attachment could be a Trojan, which can take control of the person's system's hard drive giving its remote access to someone else.

The IRS confirmed that they neither send unwanted e-mails nor inquire for personal and financial data like bank account numbers, credit card numbers, or passwords.

IRS spokesperson Eric Smith, in a statement published by the Chron in April 2007, said that they have certainly observed a rise in the number of scams on the web. Eric further said that there is a noted increase in the phony e-mails during specific times of the year, including the months of March and April.

As per news published by Wbir on May 31, 2007, Kevin M. Brown, acting IRS Commissioner, said that each person should be aware of these scam creators and be careful while opening unwanted mails or mails from unknown senders.

The IRS has received over 17,700 e-mails from taxpayers complaining about 240 separate phishing incidents ever since their mailbox was created last year.

Inquiries by Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration have, so far, recognized host websites in about 27 different countries, including US.

Other common e-mails that deceived taxpayers were about the IRS holding a refund (often $63.80) for them as well as about IRS' anti-fraud commission inspecting their tax returns.

According to the news published by Wbir on May 31, 2007, the IRS as well as the Tax Administration's Treasury Inspector General, with the help from the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) with several ISP's and global CERT teams, tries removing the phishing websites from the web the moment they're reported.

Related article: IRS Cautions Users of Fake E-Mails

» SPAMfighter News - 12-06-2007

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