Self employed - beware!!!!

michellepetpatrol

ANYONE DOING SELF ASSESSMENT BEWARE!!!!!!! I got an email from what I thought was HMRC reminding me to file my tax return for 2013. Everything was ready so I followed the links, filled it all in & was told my estimated tax was £0 (correct as my net profit was so low). The system wouldn't let me go any further until I entered my debit card details, stating the amount to be collected would be an estimate. Stupidly I entered the card details & was told my "estimate" was £150, I thought this wrong but, being new to this continued thinking if tax was collected when it shouldn't be I'd be refunded.
I have just checked and sure enough, £150 was taken by TAX RETURN GATEWAY, called them on 0843 497 0000, on hold AN HOUR & 48 MINS to be told, they are a "legitimate advisory company", nothing to do with HMRC and they have charged me £150 to use their online tax submission!!!!!! They are not regulated by any financial or government body, they basically have a software:mad: package that duplicates the HMRC forms & charge you £150 for the privilege!!!! I am furious!!!!! and £150 out of pocket. PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE BEWARE OF THESE COWBOYS!!!!!

the-mango

Unfortunately you do have to check and should also go straight to the HMRC website and make sure it ends with .gov

There are a lot of similar to the ones that you used out there - smeone else here did exactly the same thing https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/64353462#Comment_64353462

dunstonh

I just got an email too. My spam filter picked it up but I thought I would take a read of the email. It was a really poor attempt at fraud. The sending email address was not a uk.gob. It referred to an unpaid invoice (HMRC dont invoice). It had american spelling (z instead of s) and referred to a toll-free phone number. It was addressed to the first part of my email address.

Most scam emails contain errors or easy identifiers to them being fraudulent.

jobbingmusician

This isn't a scam email, it's a scam site. If you want to search listen again, there was a programme about this on Radio 4 yesterday. Ensure you are on the HMRC website, and nothing else!

bluenoseam

This is one of the major issues I've been waiting for to happen, the JCP website is litterally clogged with these self employed jobs & people lack the knowledge to fill in the necessary paperwork. It's only a matter of time before the second major issue surfaces - people getting fined for failing to do a tax return.

Hate to sound like a harbinger of doom, but I see it coming as the result of many people being forced to take these jobs by JC staff.

Podge52

You can't be forced by the JC to take a self employed role.

bluenoseam

Podge52 wrote: »

You can't be forced by the JC to take a self employed role.

You know that, but it's not exactly something you'd expect your bog standard JCP "advisor" to be falling over themselves to tell anyone who may not know this. That's where the problem comes in because the type of person who may feel "pressured" into taking a SE role is also the type of person who lacks the required knowledge of SE responsibilities. They're also the type of person highly likely to fall for the type of practices the OP has highlighted.

At the risk of sounding like I'm making a sweeping generalisation, there will be a lot of people of lesser academic achievement being encouraged to take SE roles. Those are people who also lack the intellectual ability to fully comprehend the responsibilities associated & are not in a good position to get the best advice. They'll genuinely feel they're being told to do these jobs & because of naivety will feel no choice but to take them, the same naivety will then sting them when HMRC catch up with them & they get screwed over.

We see more than enough of these problems with things like passport, drivers license, EHIC applications to know it's happening on a regular basis. That's where my concern comes in as I know people who flat out do not have the smarts to avoid being conned - either by JC staff or by these "companies". (I could use significantly more colourful language to describe them - but it'd be censored, rightly so I suppose!)

transient

jobbingmusician wrote: »

This isn't a scam email, it's a scam site. If you want to search listen again, there was a programme about this on Radio 4 yesterday. Ensure you are on the HMRC website, and nothing else!

They are not scam sites, they are perfectly legitimate businesses charging you for a service which you can normally do yourself for free, not a fan of them myself but people should use due diligence on anything on the net imho.

jacques_chirac

I am sympathetic, but there does seem to be lots of information on the named website making it clear they are not HMRC.

RuthnJasper

jobbingmusician wrote: »

This isn't a scam email, it's a scam site. If you want to search listen again, there was a programme about this on Radio 4 yesterday. Ensure you are on the HMRC website, and nothing else!

Well, this is what I thought! There are plenty of disclaimers on these sites. There is (if it hasn't already been deleted) a bizarre and pointless thread on this very issue, started by someone named 'Hpuse' who cannot accept that the plentiful disclaimers signal that the sites are not 'illegal'. I daresay he will pop up here as well before too long, claiming that this thread "proves" that he's right... :wall:

Always read the small print... AND the massive clear disclaimers... :doh:

patanne

These sites know perfectly well that they are in the business of scamming people into paying for something that does not need to be paid for. Therefore they are scamming sites and should be shut down. It would be interesting to know if they are actually paying tax on the money they scam.