Tax Update (January 2009)
HM Revenue & Customs warn of Increased Scams
31st January is the Self Assessment tax deadline and
along with that comes increased fraudulent attempts to obtain
personal information and payments from unsuspecting taxpayers.
Many of these attempts encourage you to provide bank or credit
card details so that refunds of tax can be made into your account.
The result of this is that your credit card is used to their limits
or monies taken from your account. In addition your personal
details may be sold on to criminal organisations.
The scams take many forms including e-mail, telephone calls or
one what seem to be genuine HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) forms.
Some of the current scams are detailed below.
Tax Rebate Scam – You may receive an e-mail or
phone call offering a tax rebate and requesting you to complete an
online form to receive the rebate. You should not follow the link
to the website as some may contain viruses and others will rely on
you providing personal details.
Impersonation Scam – Callers impersonate HMRC
officials demanding customs payments so that impounded goods can
clear customs and VAT payments on business activities. Invariably
no such goods exist.
Lottery Scam – A number of frauds state that a
parcel containing a cheque in respect of lottery winnings has been
impounded by HMRC which can only be released once a substantial tax
payment has been received, usually based on a percentage of the
winnings.
Lesley Strathie, HMRC Chief Executive says:
"This is the most sophisticated and prolific phishing scam that
we have encountered. We only ever contact customers who are due a
refund in writing by post. We never use e-mails, telephone calls or
external companies in these circumstances. I would strongly
encourage anyone receiving such an e-mail to send it to us for
investigation."
Through co-operation with other law enforcement agencies a
number of scam networks have been shut down – specifically in
Austria, Mexico, USA, Thailand and Japan.
If you are in doubt, please check it out with HMRC at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/security/fraud-attempts.htm.