HM Revenue and Customs has offered Brits a warning, telling them to avoid becoming the victims of scam emails from people trying to defraud them.
There were some 80,000 phishing emails reported by taxpayers in 2012 that told recipients they would get a tax rebate and asked them to provide sensitive details, such as bank details. But HMRC reminds people that it doesn’t ever alert people to tax rebates by email.
The tax authority has reminded people that by replying to such mail they could end up being a victim of account fraud or their details could fall into the hands of criminal gangs.
“HMRC does not email customers about tax refunds – we only ever contact customers who are genuinely due tax back in writing, by post,” explained HMRC head of digital security, Gareth Lloyd.
He told people receiving emails telling them they are due refunded tax that appear to have been sent by HMRC that they should forward the message to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk, then permanently delete it.
As some in career development may have heard, the tax authority recently reported that some 9.61 million people had filed a tax return before the deadlines for the 2011 – 2012 tax year.
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