Revenue Commissioners-Faked Phishing E-mails Targeting Irish Taxpayers

According to ESET an Internet security company, a fresh Irish language crafted scam e-mail is presently circulating online and targeting unwitting tax paying citizens in Ireland as it poses as communication from Revenue Commissioners the tax-collecting body of the Irish Government.

States the fraudulent e-mail, since an assessment of the 2010 tax returns, it has been computed that the recipient should be getting a tax refund worth 284 euros. Also, one web-link within the electronic mail takes the user onto one web-page, which exactly looks like the Revenue Commissioners' site, but in reality attempts at duping the user into revealing his online banking details.

Stated IT Security and Cyber-crime Analyst Urban Schrott with ESET, Ireland, the scammers somewhat attempted at making the website appear authentic, so they also mimicked the pattern of the URL-address. Siliconrepublic.com published this on February 1, 2011.

Schrott further stated that the e-mail landed into the inboxes of numerous people during the end-week of January 2011.

Meanwhile, the Revenue Commissioners alerted through its website of the scam both in English and Gaeilge. The alert, indicating the falseness of the e-mail, stated that it was the most recent scam in several that had been successively attacking Irish taxpayers, while it wasn't from Revenue. Revenue.ie reported this on February 1, 2011.

It's never a case that the Revenue Commissioners will dispatch e-mails asking consumers to e-mail their private information. Therefore, whoever gets an e-mail posing as a communication from Revenue, as also doubts it as fraudulent must clearly erase it. Indeed, anybody aware of a tax-reimbursement due to him must contact the Revenue Office in his locality for checking the latest.

Moreover, if anybody has already given out personal information by way of replying to the new bogus e-mail then he must inform his credit card firm or bank instantly.

Eventually, it isn't simply the Irish taxpayers whom cyber-criminals are exploiting. Recently AppRiver an e-mail security provider cautioned that UK's tax body Her Majesty's Customs and Revenue is being abused to continuously send tax-reimbursement related fraudulent e-mails to taxpayers in UK. So has similar scams erupted in USA, it's been reported.

Related article: Revenue Minister Attacked Within IRS E-Mail Scam

» SPAMfighter News - 2/9/2011