Phishers Try To Net Taxpayers In Their Phishing Schemes

The authorities at the Office of Consumer Affairs are alerting clients against a phishing e-mail fraud planned to resemble an official IRS email, as reported by TheCitizen on April 4, 2008.

The IRS said that "phishing" is a leading tax season fraud since phishers utilize the Internet to purloin money from innocent taxpayers.

Dispatched under the title, "Internal Revenue Service Tax Notification," message notifies the receiver that he can receive the tax refund in the form of a credit send to the recipient's MasterCard or VISA credit card. Though the URL of the connection may seem to be official, www.irs.gov, but the customer is being lead to a fake Website.

Eric Erickson, Spokesman, IRS, said that it's just a fraudulent scheme and under no circumstances did they establish any contact with a taxpayer via electronic mail IRS, as reported by wkyc on April 4, 2008.

The IRS gets in touch with taxpayers by means of notices sent via the postal service. As per Erickson, taxpayers should realize that they are not required to enter their e-mail address in their income tax returns.

Though the IRS is quite accustomed to these phishing tax messages, this season there is a new group of individuals who might fall victim to the fraudulent business schemes. Old persons on social security, who don't usually file tax returns, may do so this time so as to receive a check under the economic stimulus plan.

But, unsuspecting users who give their private and fiscal data as impelled are in fact offering their data to cyber thieves, who could use the target's credit card to accumulate huge bills or try to make a request for loans with the help of the target's ID and identification number (SSN).

Customers should always remember, the IRS never gets in contact with taxpayers via email.

Any person wishing to enter the IRS site should not click or follow any of the links offered in emails. On the contrary, he/she should enter www.irs.gov, organization official site into the browser. Also, if anybody has got a dubious email asserting to have originated from IRS, then he/she should redirect it to phishing@irs.gov, using directions given to the IRS homepage.

This will assist the IRS to follow the dubious email to the source and end the scam.

Related article: Phishers Expand Their Sphere of Attacks

» SPAMfighter News - 4/10/2008