May 21st, 2012 3 Comments » | POSTED BY ROB
Beware Of Emails From HMRC Promising Tax Rebates
Antivirus company Bitdefender has detected a scam hoping to capitalise on over three million people due to start receiving tax refund payouts in the UK from this month. The spam, entitled NOTICE OF TAX RETURN FOR YEAR 2011 contains an HMRC logo, provides financial reference numbers and impersonates an Officer of HM Revenue & Customs.
The phishing scam’s aim is to collect sensitive authentication data to people’s credit card or bank accounts, information possibly already provided to a legitimate company in the process of a tax efile. It usually includes an attached form and advises the recipient that he is owed a tax rebate of £209.87. Once the form has been completed, cyber criminals have access to the vital banking and personal information required for identity fraud or the fraudulent access and emptying of victims’ bank accounts.
This type of tax refund phishing scam was first detected in 2009. It has since undergone several developments in order to maximise its success rate targeted at those expecting to receive tax rebates in 2012. The attached form that accompanies the scam no longer opens using the cyber criminals’ registered domains, but now downloads onto the user’s PC and opens through their local browser. This bypasses the anti-phishing module in local security solutions, allowing it to execute. Bitdefender believes the form is then sent to a domain registered in New Zealand.
“With over three million UK citizens expected to start receiving tax refund payouts from now until October, there is clearly a large audience which could be duped by this convincing phishing scam,” said Catalin Cosoi, Chief Security Researcher at Bitdefender. “The scam is more intelligent than ever before and capable of bypassing many traditional antivirus systems. We advise the public to disregard emails claiming to offer a tax rebate and ensure they have an effective security solution in place.”
The official HMRC site states that it is their policy to “NEVER send notification of a tax rebate by email, or ask you to disclose personal or payment information by email.” Some of the most common examples of fake email addresses / email content or attachments used in tax rebate phishing scams are available to view here.
Related Posts
- Tax Rebate Scam Emails (October 19, 2011)
- Keep Your Eyes Open For These 2 Scams (January 12, 2009)
- HSBC “Online Access Disabled” Spam (March 17, 2010)
- Phishing – don’t fall for the bait (December 21, 2009)
- MoneyExpert: ‘Banks Need To Increase Security’ (October 31, 2006)
3 Comments on “Beware Of Emails From HMRC Promising Tax Rebates”
Financial Independence, May 25th, 2012
Thank for sharing the alert!
Joey from PaydayLoan@, November 28th, 2012
Higher tax rates are not the key to deficit reduction but they are the key to economic stimulation. The argument that lower rates stimulate the economy is a bogus one. Higher rates provide the subsidy to the business man to invest more because he calculates that the Government is picking up a greater part of the tab. In addition higher rates along with economically stimulating refundable tax credits provides the incentive for businesses to invest with a limited downside risk.
Stephen Hyde, April 25th, 2013
Just saw the same thing here http://fakeletters.org/scam-emails/notice-of-tax-return .. it seems they are doing it again this year! Is there anyway to report this fraud?
Twitter
Facebook
G+