Fraudulent emails from ‘HMRC’
There has been an increase in the number of fraudulent tax refund emails being sent to taxpayers. These emails, which offer bogus tax refunds, are being sent by organised criminal gangs and there are numerous different versions of scam emails being sent to taxpayers. HMRC reportthat the number of emails sent by these gangs hit a new peak this month. In the last year alone, HMRC has received over 15,000 reports of fraudulent emails.
The fraudulent emails tell taxpayers that they are due a tax refund and ask for bank or credit card details in order to repay the ‘tax refund’. HMRC stress that they only ever contact taxpayers by post about refunds.
The fraudulent emails are being sent from all around the world. HMRC is liaising with law enforcement agencies who have shut down spam networks in the UK, Korea, USA and Thailand, but the problem of fraudulent emails continues.
There are a number of versions of this scam which have been tracked as coming from the following email addresses:
refundtax@hmrc.gov.co.uk
TaxRefund@hmrc.gov.uk
service@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
claims@hmrc.direct.gov.uk
notice@hmrc.gov.uk
hmrc@hmrc.gov.uk
admin@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
info@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
no-reply@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
In addition there are sure to be other email addresses of which HMRC are unaware.