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**Inland Revenue Privatised, Is Now In Vietnam**
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codger
Posts: 2,079 Forumite
I haven't come across this one before so apologies if it's an old-familiar.
I've today received an email from HM Inland Revenue advising of a tax refund of GBP 284.96p. This would, of course, have been good news had the email come from, er, HM Revenue & Customs. And contained a £ sign, instead of GBP.
The email is the usual scam job but this time has had rather more effort than usual pumped into it, notably an Inland Revenue Tax Refund Claim Form which is attached to the email as a .pdf.
Issued in knowledge of the Perjury Acts of the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom (whoa-hey!) it requires me to fill in the details of my credit card, or anyone else's, so that the, um, "Inland Revenue" can deposit GBP 284.96p into that account (shurely, they mean 'credit' that card?) within six to nine working days.
Having duly filled in the form -- looks rather nice, too, by the way, lots of pretty coloured boxes -- I have to FAX it to "HM Inland Revenue" at a telephone number that's actually. . . undiallable.
There are no tricksy links to follow in the email (other than to Adobe, so as to download Acrobat Reader) and neither the email nor the .pdf attachment are bugged in any way. The English isn't too bad but then the standard of secondary education in Vietnam is actually quite good -- assuming, of course, that that's where HM Inland Revenue Tax Refund Department is based, according to the originating DNS:
Sadly though, as any scammer can use any server from anywhere in the world, revelation of the originating address doesn't actually mean anything at all.
Anyway. Thought I'd let other MSErs know. People are pretty much alert nowadays to phishing, and one as hilariously inept as this -- despite all the effort put into it -- stands out a mile. Still; someone might waste a lot of time, trying to fax the info. . .
PS:
I've advised HM Revenue & Customs Helpdesk -- the real HM Revenue & Customs, that is -- of this attempted scam and have just received a most helpful reply.
Well, I think it's helpful: I can't read Chinese. And the Revenue Officer concerned, Mrs Lai Dim Sum, hasn't enclosed a translation.
Maybe there's something in this after all: Mr Brown has got to find the money from somewhere to fund the cost of sorting out that 10p tax band mess.
So there you are then: the Ho Chi Minh City Post & Telecom Company & Inland Revenue Department of Tax Refunds it is!!
Ah. . . doncha just love the smell of newly-opened tax refund documents in a morning?
I've today received an email from HM Inland Revenue advising of a tax refund of GBP 284.96p. This would, of course, have been good news had the email come from, er, HM Revenue & Customs. And contained a £ sign, instead of GBP.
The email is the usual scam job but this time has had rather more effort than usual pumped into it, notably an Inland Revenue Tax Refund Claim Form which is attached to the email as a .pdf.
Issued in knowledge of the Perjury Acts of the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom (whoa-hey!) it requires me to fill in the details of my credit card, or anyone else's, so that the, um, "Inland Revenue" can deposit GBP 284.96p into that account (shurely, they mean 'credit' that card?) within six to nine working days.
Having duly filled in the form -- looks rather nice, too, by the way, lots of pretty coloured boxes -- I have to FAX it to "HM Inland Revenue" at a telephone number that's actually. . . undiallable.
There are no tricksy links to follow in the email (other than to Adobe, so as to download Acrobat Reader) and neither the email nor the .pdf attachment are bugged in any way. The English isn't too bad but then the standard of secondary education in Vietnam is actually quite good -- assuming, of course, that that's where HM Inland Revenue Tax Refund Department is based, according to the originating DNS:
inetnum: 221.132.16.0 - 221.132.39.255
netname: HCMPT-NET
country: vn
descr: Ho Chi Minh City Post and Telecom Company
netname: HCMPT-NET
country: vn
descr: Ho Chi Minh City Post and Telecom Company
Sadly though, as any scammer can use any server from anywhere in the world, revelation of the originating address doesn't actually mean anything at all.
Anyway. Thought I'd let other MSErs know. People are pretty much alert nowadays to phishing, and one as hilariously inept as this -- despite all the effort put into it -- stands out a mile. Still; someone might waste a lot of time, trying to fax the info. . .
PS:
I've advised HM Revenue & Customs Helpdesk -- the real HM Revenue & Customs, that is -- of this attempted scam and have just received a most helpful reply.
Well, I think it's helpful: I can't read Chinese. And the Revenue Officer concerned, Mrs Lai Dim Sum, hasn't enclosed a translation.
Maybe there's something in this after all: Mr Brown has got to find the money from somewhere to fund the cost of sorting out that 10p tax band mess.
So there you are then: the Ho Chi Minh City Post & Telecom Company & Inland Revenue Department of Tax Refunds it is!!
Ah. . . doncha just love the smell of newly-opened tax refund documents in a morning?
0
Comments
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this is becoming quite a common scam, there are many similar emails. more info on this here: http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/report/72040
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