Beware of tax refund scam emails

[Jammyman]

A new version of an old tax scam has appeared. Emails from [email protected]? have an attached PDF file which you are asked to open to obtain details on your tax refund. This attachment contains a Trojan virus which will infect your computer and enable the spammers to see your online activity. DO NOT OPEN this attachment, there is no tax refund!

HMRC will never send tax refund notifications or ask you to disclose any personal or banking information online. You can forward the scam message to [email protected]? so that they are aware of the latest messages.

[Alan Medic]

Thanks for the tip.

[Loz]

General tip - NEVER open an attachment or click on a link unless you are expecting it. Few places send them these days.

Current scams include parcel notifications, tax notifications, Paypal notifications, bank notifications, etc, etc. A good indictor is anything addressed to you by email name (Dear [email protected]...) is a scam. Check that the email address is forged - on hotmail/outlook you'll see the sender is something like "[email protected] ([email protected])"

Also, if you get an email saying 'your account is frozen - click here and give us all your details", then be alert. If you hover over (not click) the link you'll see in the browser status bar at the bottom of the window the ACTUAL url you will be sent to (something like "http://www.sitename.ru/bankscampage.html").

[Adon]

And again another fraud - impersonating Her Majesty?s Revenue and Customs - http://myspybot.com/hmrc-email-phone-scam-virus/

[Rosetta]

I keep getting spam email from Federal Express, never open, just delete.

[Alan Medic]

On the subject of tax refunds I wrote on behalf of my son for a refund for 2015/16. The reply I got was they had no record of him having paid any tax. When he came home for a month he provided me with payslips which were on his computer. I wrote again and lo and behold a cheque arrived a few weeks later. Not lots of money but for a student abroad most welcome for him and me.

[jaywalker]

Also, its worth knowing that this scam can come via text message. Troublingly, on my iPhone I got a message a few days ago that managed to hijack the existing AUTHENTIC message thread of HMRC access codes for online submission - so looked convincing. Usual fraudulent link to click.

Perhaps it is just that time of year, but I got this a few days after submitting my tax return - as with bank fraud so often aided or committed by insiders, one rather wonders if there is someone selling info.