Scam E-Mails Piggybacking on IRD Target Bay-of-Plenty Taxpayers

Residents of Bay of Plenty, an enormous indentation within North Island's northern coast in New Zealand, are being cautioned about a variety of scam e-mails, which are presently aiming to attack them, while posing as communication from IRD (Inland Revenue Department). Sunlive.co.nz reported this on July 14, 2011.

Significantly, Inland Revenue Department's official website renders services and information on taxes along with particular social policy facilities for anyone in New Zealand who's a taxpayer.

Meanwhile, one electronic mail from the spam tells its recipients that their accounts have been logged into from two places. Thereafter, the message directs them that they require verifying personal billing addresses by calling a given phone-number. But when dialed, the phone-number connects with somebody at Sierra Leone (West Africa).

The other electronic mail promises recipients a tax rebate. But a given web-link inside the message actually takes the user onto one bogus site having the logo of IRD where he's asked for supplying his private details such as credit card information and username.

Telling more about the fake electronic mails, Heather Daly Group Manager of IRD stated that anybody who entered the details asked for could be risked at losing his information, therefore, it was being urged that people simply overlook the e-mails. Sunlive.co.nz published this.

Says Ms. Daly that people must exercise caution when providing personal information, but if anybody has already answered the scam e-mails with his details, he should contact his card provider.

Furthermore, she added that incase anyone had been victimized with any of the above mentioned fraud e-mail campaigns then he must alter his password instantly.

Moreover, according to Ms. Daly, since the scams' place-of-origin is usually a foreign country, it's difficult for tracking down their perpetrators. She notes that anytime these scams surface, people simply hurry to download them, usually in the next 24-hours.

Eventually, cyber-criminals aiming to attack IRD or its consumers aren't doing so for the first instance. During April 2011, an alert was issued to Mid Cantabrians (Canterbury Region, NZ) that same kinds of scam e-mails were exploiting IRD's name, while offering $978.50 and $378.50 as discounts to taxpayers.

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» SPAMfighter News - 7/22/2011