Devon County Police Alerts Residents of E-mail Scams

Police are alerting residents of Sidmouth (Devon, England) to remain on guard after a number of e-mail scams has circulated in the country.

A large number of homeowners called the officers and reported that they were receiving e-mails that promised tax reimbursements from sources claiming to be the representatives of Inland Revenue. Further, the e-mails sought confidential information for making the reimbursement.

However, security specialists have commented fraudsters could use the information to commit identity theft. Instead of earning a good money reward as expected, people could in fact lose cash to criminals who could illegally access the formers bank accounts.

The specialists added, it is not difficult to get cheated with such get-rich-quick schemes, but in truth, people who are actually getting wealthy are the scammers. According to them, the get-rich-quick scams are pretty common, with ones that offer money awards more tempting. Thus, people should be vigilant and not reply with any private information.

Meanwhile, Inland Revenue has said that the e-mail messages are fake and also warned that they could be part of a scam. Thus, it has advised anyone getting such an e-mail to erase it immediately. The organization also advised users not to respond to any e-mail, coming from an unknown source, by giving away their private information.

Moreover, the Police have published information to make residents aware of several common online frauds they keep hearing of in Devon.

The officials also said that their agency keeps receiving reports from people within the community about perpetrators trying to exploit them as well as from citizens who have actually become victims.

However, it is often hard to probe the scams as once the fraudsters steal the cash they transfer it to some other country that makes jurisdiction complex.

Meanwhile, the Police authorities have alerted that scammers are employing new methods to reach victims, like using online job postings, putting up items on the Internet for sale and using social-networking websites, besides socially engineering over the phone.

Thus, the Police have recommended everyone who has received this e-mail that they should overlook it since Inland Revenue doesn't send e-mail to clients.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/18/2009