UK taxpayers hit by wave of tax refund scam mail HMRC has warned taxpayers to be on their guard against a new slew of phishing attacks touting fake tax rebates. The UK's tax men said that 83,000 scam emails were brought to its attention last month, while 10,000 reports of the attempted fraud were reported on just one day this month. The scamsters tempt their marks by saying …
If someone is stupid enough to believe this is legit and their banks/other financial institutions would request their details by email then they deserve to be have their cards/accounts emptied.
Its not like this is a new thing ffs.
if they cant be taught then they deserve everything they get
well according to our 'rulers' it is against natural justice to implement RETROSPECTIVE changes in the rules - so you must be mistaken my friend
. . . oh wait, sorry I forgot, well silly me . . . one set of rules, standards of decency and honesty for MPs, and different ones for the rest of the population - along with hefty fines of course grrrrrr
<yes, the one with the copy of Hansard in the pocket please>
Law of averages means they must get enough returns to make it worth their time and effort.
Perhaps we should introduce a one-strike law. Fall for a phishing scam and you lose all your internet connections as you are clearly too dumb or ignorant to be trusted with such a thing.
Either that or turn yourself in to a designated location for an educational course with a baseball bat and a rusty nail.
I found the contact email address with ONE click. On the very front page of the www.hmrc.gov.uk site:
Online security
Online protection advice, including reporting phishing scams
Click through and you will see:
If you have received an email from HMRC that you consider to be fraudulent, please forward it to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk. HMRC cannot reply to every email, but action is taken on each report received.
Simples...as our Meercat friend would say!
is not considered Spam, particularly in the US where it is encouraged as a means to get new clients.
Until that changes and ALL unsolicited mail is treated as SPAM and suitable laws for both spammers and their ISPs brought in and policed, then this kind of thing will continue.
When 90% of email is spam (as it is on my mail server - serving only 5 people) then something is wrong. Also if HMRC can only warm people then again something is really wrong. We all suffer so some marketing people can still flog HTML email marketing.
I don't know how anyone falls for phishing these days, as you're likely to get phishing emails for 10 different banks you don't use before they send you one that applies to your bank. Even the most idiotic user will be wise to it by then, surely?
Same goes for the tax return ones;
"On Monday the IRS wanted my details, now HMRC do as well. That's not suspicious at all even though the emails are otherwise identical. Better respond to it now.
// There is a pigeon in your bank account, sir. We need your bank account number and sort code so that we can get access to the vault and remove it.
A certain airline sent us an email asking for personal details (which they already have) in an email complete with a 'click this link to enter details'.
I couldn't believe it wasn't a phishing attempt until I did an IP lookup against the domain registrant and checked in phishpool and a few other sites.
While legit companies still send emails like this, it will be easy for crooks to spoof them.
FWIW, I had a couple of those, directing me to hmrc.co.uk[1]. I thought that looks interesting, shouldn't the real HMRC have that one? Turns out it *is* the real HMRC, according to whois. Furthermore, they've included a full postal address for my nearest HMRC office!
You actually have to decode (or click) the base64-encoded attachment to get a real dodgy URL[2]!
[1] and no doubt another few thousand knocking at the spam filter.
[2] albeit on the rather dubious premise that the real HMRC is non-dodgy.
Surprised that only one Comment has mentioned the "Notice of underreported income" emails - I have had a slew of those this week. They came dribbling in, using just a small number of destination mailbox names (some valid, others invented but frequently seen in incoming emails).
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