Tax Time Email Scams
By: Nancy | April 03, 2008 | Category: Money
There wasn't a whole lot of April Fooling going on at Gov Gab headquarters this week, I'm sorry to report—except for the person who went nuts with a roll of double-face tape at lunchtime and stuck the office refrigerator door shut. I don't know who would do such a thing. But I regress. I mean, digress...
I wanted to tell you about another kind of fooling involving your email and tax season.
This year, more than 80 million tax returns will be filed electronically. And with America's growing comfort with online transactions—from shopping and auctions to banking and investing—scammers know you'll pay attention when you get an email that seems to be from a company or government agency you do business with, saying that there's a problem with your account. Scammers have gotten so good at spoofing—masquerading online as legitimate government agencies and businesses—to "phish" your personal and financial information out of you that even really web-savvy people are being fooled.
As we’re approaching tax time, scammers in the guise of the IRS are sending email messages reporting that you have an unexpected tax refund. And, they say, if you click the link in their email and enter information about yourself and your bank account, they'll send your refund. Don't believe it. Follow those instructions and you're likely to have your bank account drained instead.
How do you know what's real? Take a minute right now to read the IRS' alert about phishing emails and other tax scams. They also explain how to report fraudulent IRS email messages so they can investigate and catch the scammers.
If your email in-box is anything like mine, besides the confidential messages from Nigerian bankers and spam offering cheap prices on medications, you'll see other phishing schemes. I've gotten fake email allegedly from eBay, PayPal and more than a dozen banks and mortgage companies--most of which I don't even do business with. And they all request personal and financial information from me because my "account has been breached" or they want to update my records. Baloney. The government agencies and companies you do business with will not email you out of the blue about your account. When you get email messages like these, avoid opening them. But if you accidentally do, don't click any links in the email—they'll take you to a spoofed site instead of the real thing.
To find out if an email message is really from a company or agency, type the company or agency’s name or url into a search engine to make sure you get onto the legitimate site. Then on the home page, look for "contact us" or "security" or "report fake email/phishing" for instructions on determining whether an email is the real deal, and on reporting or forwarding the fake email for investigation.
As I've been writing this, I got another fake IRS email. It looks a lot like this. I forwarded it right on to the IRS for investigation. It makes me really mad when someone tries to take advantage of me—and of you. Please be careful online, and I'll do the same.
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Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.”
When I received the first scam e-mail, I thought it was a scam. However, I did have someone check on it for me. This person provided me with the e-mail address you have listed so I could report this e-mail scam.
Thank you for the information. All of you gov-gabbers are doing a great job!
Thomas
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