Sister fell for phishing tax scam by text (Help)

Robert89

My sister got a text from what she thought was HM Revenue & Customs. From a sender called 'TaxReturned'.

The text read as follows:

(Name), with end of tax year approaching, it's time to get some extra money in your pocket.

Apply here for your tax refund:
rwm.co/9KKGr66

Optout: out2.me

Stupidly she then opened the link and provided them with her and her boyfriend's national insurance numbers and our home address, which they asked for in the 'form', thinking they can get a tax rebate. She's young and naive so had no idea about these text scams. My concern is what will the scammer do now he has got the information he wants, and what can we do about it?

Darksparkle

She should report it to HMRC and her bank.

sheramber

If you've had an HMRC email or text message you suspect isn't genuine report it here

phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk

If HMRC needs to contact you about anything confidential they’ll reply by phone or post.

HMRC never send notifications of a tax rebate or ask you to disclose personal or payment information by email or text message.

TadleyBaggie

Darksparkle wrote: »

She should report it to HMRC and her bank.

OP makes no mention of bank details being supplied.

dori2o

There is a company called Tax Returned Limited. They are a company who send out hundreds of thousands of mailer forms for people to fill in to reclaim tax and make expenses claims, usually for flat/fixed rate expenses or uniform/ laundry expenses claims.

I've never seen them use this method before of gathering new 'customers' but if the OP has only filled in name and address details and not provided bank details then this does not fit the usual scam emails which generally ask for bank and/or credit card details in order to take money directly from accounts.

The issue with the majority of these online based tax refund/expense claim companies is that they have the person sign a Deed of Assignment. This Deed transfers ownership of the tax refund to the company, meaning HMRC have a legal obligation to pay the refund to the company as they legally own the money.

Deeds of Assignment can only apply for tax which has already been paid, meaning they only assign the tax years which have ended, and only a maximum of upto the last 4 tax years which is all that is available to be reviewed. Deeds of assignment cannot apply to future tax years.

HMRC get many complaints about these, especially where the taxpayer is unaware that they have signed this deed, and some get quite upset when they realise the refund has been sent to these companies (typically this is done so that these companies can deduct their 'Fee' for providing their services before sending the rest of the payment to the claimant. This despite the only work the company has done is to provide a form byonline post or online which the taxpayer fills in, prints out, and posts to HMRC)

If the OP did give bank details please contact the bank(s) immediately if not already done so.

If you do simply receive a form/forms to complete please update this topic to advise the name of the company they are from.

I've never seen this approach and I would use the information to pass on to the necessary people in HMRC.

TempUserName123

It is against the law for businesses to spam text or call people.

I would suggest you raise a complaint here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/marketing/spam-texts-and-nuisance-calls/

This is quite a serious offence. It takes 5 minutes to report them