HM Revenue & Customs (spoof TAX REFUND e-mail)

tomba_2

BEWARE!!! :eek: There is a well written phishing e-mail just out today (03/06/2008) to do with Inland Revenue Tax Refund due to you. A believable amount of £281.43 refund. Not got the usual spelling anomalies (e.g. authoriZe) although there is a wee indicative spelling mistake (see lengthen below). Not immediately an obvious spoof. Extract as follows:

Inland Revenue Tax Refund - You are eligible to receive a tax refund of £281.43
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of £281.43. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.

ATENTION: Insufficient or incorrect information may lenghten the whole process. Usually does not take more than one week from the date you have provided us with your details. In some cases (especially submitted by those without permanent National Insurance Number) this may take considerably longer.
You have 48 hours to complete your tax refund claim. To access the secure form for your tax refund, please click the link below:

(link looks good too!!!!!!!!!!!!) :mad:
BEWARE - IT IS FAKE... HMRC will never OFFER you a refund before you even put claim to paper! Don't be tempted to 'click',
Cheers! :beer:

rogue_element

Can you give the link or register it with phishtank/do help->report web forgery in firefox. Then others will be warned.

Jacobs_dad

Thanks to Tomba for the post about this matter.

I received an initially believable email this week (10/09/09) with a link that apparently takes to to the HMRC website where you are asked to provide credit card details, including 3 digit code. Email copied below (note the grammatical error in red):


TAX RETURN FOR THE YEAR 2009
RECALCULATION OF YOUR TAX REFUND
HMRC 2008-2009
LOCAL OFFICE No. 3819
TAX CREDIT OFFICER: NEIL ROBINSON
TAX REFUND ID NUMBER: 381716209
REFUND AMOUNT: 344.79
　
Dear Applicant,
The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and as applicable, copyright in these is reserved to HM Revenue & Customs.
Unless expressly authorised by us, any further dissemination or distribution of this email or its attachments is prohibited.
If you are not the intended recipient of this email, please reply to inform us that you have received this email in error and then delete it without retaining any copy.
I am sending this email to announce: After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 344.79
You have attached the tax return form with the TAX REFUND NUMBER ID: 381716209, complete the tax return form attached to this message.
After completing the form, please submit the form by clicking the SUBMIT button on form and allow us 5-9 business days in order to process it.
Our head office address can be found on our web site. (a link was provided.)

Sincerely,
NEIL ROBINSON
HMRC Tax Credit Officer
[EMAIL="officer.robinson@hmrc.co.uk"]officer.robinson@hmrc.co.uk[/EMAIL]
Preston
PR1 0SB

peter_the_piper

Had a few of these lately, filed in the bin of course, along with my winnings on the lottery, president thingy wanting to give me millions and the viagra sellers. Without these my inbox would be very empty.

fiscal_savvy

My fiance today received an email relating to the above subject. Although we never would have submitted for the 'refund' without first contacting HM Revenue & Customs, I have had some training in fraudulent activities (through banking) during which I learnt that the first things one looks for in potentially fraudulent emails are spelling and grammatical errors. This particular email had none of these errors, however the attached form (where he was asked to enter his credit card details) had two glaring errors which alarmed me - firstly it stated that the credit card details completed below are where the money will be DEBITED (if it was indeed a refund the money would be CREDITED), and secondly, the next line stated that the credit card details entered below would be where the money would be SEND (instead of SENT).

I feel sorry for people who actually fall for these scams.

zax47

Totally credible (not!) - except for the fact that HMRC NEVER EMAIL YOU. If they want to correspond with you they do it by mail and wil ALWAYS quote your NI number and/or tax reference.

Ask yourself the simple question - "how did HMRC get my email address if I didn't give it them?" It's not rocket science to avoid being a victim - just straight forward commonsense!

charlhrdy

It is only because Google Chrome warned it was a phishing site that I didn't go any further, looks very good. Put completely the wrong details in and it still brought up my rebate! ANOther lol


Dear Applicant:

Following an upgrade of our computer systems and review of our
records we have investigated your payments and latest tax returns
over the last seven years our calculations show you have made over
payments of £ 538.40.

Due to the high volume of refunds due you must complete the on line
application, the telephone help line is unable to assist with this application.
In order to process your refund you will need to complete the attached
application form.

Your refund may take up to 6 weeks to process please make sure you
complete the form correctly.
As we are upgrading our records we require the completed form
showing your full current details by September, 30 2011

To access the form for your tax refund, please click here

Chirs Howlader
Senior Manager
HM Revenue & Customs

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© Copyright 2011, HM Revenue & Customs UK All rights reserved.

peter_the_piper

If you clicked on the link make sure you give your comp. a thorough virus and malware check. Well known they often house nasties.

tallyhoh

I had one from the HMRCbut they were going to "criminally persue & indicate me"???? if I failed to correctly complete my details.

triticale

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/security/examples.htm

pineapple

Bumping this because it is still on the go. A neighbour just phoned the Inland Revenue to find if the letter re a refund was bona fide. IMO she shouldn't even have opened the mail. And why on earth an otherwise intelligent person should think the Inland Revenue would email you out of the blue about a refund beats me! . However the scam must be paying...