The email reads "Over the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of £99.23. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-6 days in order to process it."
It then contains a link which claims to go to the HMRC website. However, it actually takes users to a fake website - designed to look exactly the same as the real one. Unsuspecting victims are then asked to enter key financial data before being redirected to the real HMRC website. In the meantime their financial data is used to remove money from their bank accounts and they may be unaware of this for some time.
HMRC's website contains two valuable pages on the subject of spoofs, scams and frauds:
- Warnings about what to look out for in scams and fraud attempts by email.
- A list of the known Existing fraud attempts which lists current known scams, frauds and spoofs.
If you are generally concerned about online frauds, phishing emails and scams, you will find loads of helpful advice and tips here: Get safe online
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Thanks for sharing this Mark, my personal advice is to always work with a good accountant
ReplyDeleteLouisa Nardini