IRS Cautions Napa County Tax Payers of Fraudulent E-mails

Taxpayers in the Napa County -California, USA- are being warned by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to be cautious of IRS-themed phishing e-mails. IRS notes that due to the tax season, it is quite possible that loads of people would attempt to collect revenue.

Seemingly, in the scam latest sighted, the fraudulent e-mail informs the user of a refund. To have the refund issued to a Visa or Mastercard account, he or she has to fill out a form that asks for data like a Social Security number, ATM pin number credit card numbers, mother's maiden name, and bank names.

Moreover, an authentic looking logo of IRS is also contained in the e-mail.

Deputy District Attorney of the Napa County (USA), Daryl Roberts, stated that the tax payers of the county are strongly advised to not to reveal any such information to anyone, according to the statement published by apavalleyregister.com on April 1, 2010. He added that such stuff should not be provided to IRS also.

IRS has faced such attacks earlier also. In fact, as disclosed by a recent blog posting bb McAfee security, scammers trying to do well in IRS-based phishing schemes and also on the tax time are all set for an early and record-setting launch. Actually, McAfee Labs statistics reveal that over 1500 domains supported IRS-themed phishing scams in the month of February this year, which overshadowed the high-water mark of over 800 witnessed in April 2009.

The IRS also provides a Consumer Alerts page which studies some of the recent and most disreputable tax season swindles. The website names a numerous scams encountered by the IRS. It admits that most of the fake communications, e-mails in particular, can give an official look, especially while using IRS logo.

The IRS, however, cautions taxpayers that only one official IRS website exists, which is IRS.gov, and the service will never ever use e-mails as the mode of communication to contact tax payers.

Therefore, people are recommended that in case they receive an e-mail that claims to be sent from IRS, they must not respond. Also, if any sort of attachment comes along, then it must not be opened. And, if the person wants, he/she may delete it after forwarding it to the IRS.

Related article: IRS Cautions Taxpayers of Recent Email Scam

» SPAMfighter News - 4/13/2010