Skatteverket Warns Swedish Taxpayers about Scam Emails

Thelocal.se reported on 8th August, 2014 stating that the Swedish tax agency, popularly known as Skatteverket, has warned Swedes to be extra cautious while dealing with texts and emails claiming to be from the tax authorities.

Thelocal.se reported on 8th August, 2014 quoting Lotta Oscarsson, Security Manager of the agency as saying "These types of messages tend to appear at the time of tax refund. It may be difficult for non-Swedish speakers to understand whether the message is real or fake but there are signs which can help people to recognize. We never ask for personal details through email and hence people must understand that these are messages purporting to be from Skatteverket."

She added that anybody who receives a suspicious email should not click on any links or open any attachments and should never reply to such messages.

The messages often promise to refund precise tax amount with a link which need to be clicked for getting the refund. Those clicking the link might get a computer virus or might be infected with Trojan horse malware which can give access to hackers to the computer system of the victim.

Oscarsson advised that those who have provided their bank details should inform the police and contact their bank immediately.

Taxing agents comment that alarmingly Swedish tax agency is not the only agency which is being thronged by scammers because similar tax-themed scam email campaign had appeared in Australia in last month.

ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) and ATO (Australian Taxing Office) recently warned consumers across the country so that they don't fall for the latest outbreak of phone and email scammers who posed as government officials during the time of filing tax.

ATO revealed that $300,000 has been lost to crooks posing as bureaucrats since the beginning of the year.

Choice.com.au published news in third week of July 2014 quoting Delia Rickard, Acting Chairperson of ACCC, as saying "These fraudsters contact you all of a sudden saying that you have paid extra tax amount and hence you are now entitled for a refund. To get the refund, they ask you to first pay a transfer or administration fee and may ask your bank details promising to transfer your refund to your account."

» SPAMfighter News - 8/18/2014