call from tax man or prank?

soolin

I'm alone at home and took a call a short while ago from a man claiming to be from HM Revenue and Customs re my OH. I explained that OH was not here and was told that HMR&C needed to talk to him urgently and that I should get him to phone back as soon as possible. He would not leave a name and when I asked if they had tried calling our accountant the man said that he had no idea about an accountant, but my OH must call straight back as it was urgent. I asked for an extension number and was told it wasn't necessary and they would track the call via the name.

OH duly called back on number left and it turned out to be a general help desk for self assessment queires who say that no one there would have called anyone, and they had no idea who called and left that number.

Accountant also says this sounds very odd especially as caller didn't want to leave a name or extension number. He suggests it was a prank, even though we are ex directory, and to ignore it.

Anyone else had calls from the self assessment help desk, or shall we just do as accountant says and ignore it? OH can't get hold of anyone anyway as they just insist no one would have given that number to call.

I was a bit panicked to be honest, although we declare everything and have had a refund for this year already you automatically assume you've forgotton something, or they suspect you of doing something wrong.

Soo

soolin

albertross wrote:

Have you filed your 2005/6 return? They may be ringing to remind you.

Yep and received the refund due for tax overpaid.

Soo

Graham_Devon

In my experience, they dont call to you, they write.

Petmidget

Ignore it, if it was HMRC and they do need to contact you then they will write to you.

I have heard of HMRC phoning people to remind them about txr filing in recent times which personally I think is a total waste of resources.

Lets phone 4 million people to remind them!!!

soolin

Thank you everyone.

The accountant also said that if they needed someone urgently they would write, not just make a telephone call!

Feel much better now.

Soo

Hoddie_2

Graham_Devon wrote:

In my experience, they dont call to you, they write.

The tax office are currently going through a programme of calling people who have outstanding tax returns, and to remind those who have yet to file the 05/06 return. The touble is that those answering the phone are different to those making the outbound calls, and are not always kept up to date with what's going on.

I would think this was a genuine call. I'd recommend that your OH calls his own tax office (rather than the general number given) to discuss whether there's a problem or not.

Mikeyorks

HMRC have a number of outward facing call centres - used primarily for debt pursuit. As most call centres - they wouldn't give a name /Ext for a return call ... as the way the predictive diallers work means they can't guarantee to get you back to the initiating operator.

At this time of year they do make calls to people where they believe the SA Return is outstanding. But as it's not their core business to do this - they probably leave the number of the SA Help Desk for any return calls. But clearly a bit inappropriate if they haven't left a clear message that is why they were ringing! A further case of Data Protection getting in the way of clarity?

As post #7 - ring the Area Office from his SA documents - quote the UTR and check if there's any issues you're unaware of. It sounds genuine ... but as though it's working from a slightly out of date bit of the database.