Income Tax Phishing Websites Deactivated

According to the financialadvice.co.uk, which published news on August 12, 2010, HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs) confirms that almost 200 fake websites related to tax returns are no longer allowed to run because of cyber-criminals' tendency of exploiting citizens seeking to claim refunds during their filing of returns. States HMRC that these websites have been distributing e-mails luring taxpayers to apply for refunds.

Actually, such tax scam websites chiefly try to collect netizens' personal and secret information along with details of their financial accounts. So, immediately when such details come under the ownership of online crooks, victims will only realize that money has gone out of their bank accounts as well as credit cards along with other financial measures being illegally acquired on their behalf.

Notably, scammers use various subjects apart from tax to pull victims in their traps. These are income-support and child-benefit claims, buying of fake certificates authorizing entities as ant-terrorists, lottery winnings, customs clearance related to goods supposedly dispatched through post, and compensation claims following victimization of fraud.

Said Director of Customer Contact Chris Hopson at HMRC, the body contacted consumers for a tax reclaim only via a written notification delivered through post. It didn't ever make telephone calls, use external organizations' services or e-mails for the purpose, he explained. Webuser published this on August 13, 2010.

Hopson continued that HMRC strongly recommended that anybody being contacted over phone for any such detail must never give it out, instead inform the police about it directly. Moreover, anyone getting an e-mail stating it was from HMRC must forward it to the body where it'd be investigated, prior to deleting it forever.

Meanwhile, taxpayers becoming targets of such fake communications isn't something new. During January 2010, HMRC cautioned that innumerable fraudulent e-mails, apparently promising re-imbursements, had been dispatched close to the last date scheduled for submitting IT forms.

Security researchers, while remarking about the problem stated that cyber-crime associated with it was increasingly spreading worldwide as large numbers of people went online. Thus Internet surfers required remaining extremely cautious of unsolicited e-mails or phone-calls as they could be significantly harmful.

Related article: Innocent Internauts are Targeted by E-mails Imitating Wal-Mart

» SPAMfighter News - 8/19/2010