Tax refund scam; watch out for email apparently from the Tax Office

JackRS

This is probably old news?

One of the guys at work received an email from what looked like the Tax Office, offering tax refund, you then fill out a document with all your bank details including 3 digit security number from the back of the card. Fortunately he checked it out by phoning the tax office and the sites been reported etc. The thing that gave it away apart from asking for security number was it was .co.uk not a .gov site. The amount they were offering was similar to the amount he was previously awarded (a few hundred).

Sorry if I’ve put this in the wrong place or it was reported earlier.

TM1976

What is the web address?

JackRS

Sorry I don't know, the guys not hear now, but it was similar to official one so something with letters in like hmrc.co.uk, sorry i know that's not much help.

JackRS

Actually I think that is right looking this site which qoutes a similar email:

http://hmrcis!!!!!.blogspot.com/2009/06/scam-alert.html

trevormax

this has been around for a while. HMRC have a section detailing this scam and others on their website.

I've had two of these emails but luckily I know how to work out my tax so I know i am not due a rebate but many people fall for it.

toby3000

I work for the HMRC, and there have been loads of these sent out this week.

Apparently it looks very convincing, but we would never inform you of a refund via e-mail and wouldn't ask for bank/credit card details or in fact any personal information in an e-mail. When we reply to e-mails from people we even remove the national insurance number/tax reference numbers etc, since e-mail isn't a secure format.

Jodun

I got one of these a few weeks ago, the address it came from is [EMAIL="customers@hmrc.gov.uk"]customers@hmrc.gov.uk[/EMAIL]. You can forward it to the real HMRC at [EMAIL="phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk"]phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL].