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By now, most of you have heard that President
Bush approved tax rebates. Most people who file
2007 taxes are due to receive some money and
even though you are probably excited, there are
criminals out there that are even more so. Why?
Because they have a new opportunity to take
advantage of unsuspecting people … don’t let
them scam you!
With these new rebates, would-be thieves are
using the telephone, the Internet, and even text
messages to fool you and now more than ever,
they seem official.
Often, the crooks send you emails appearing to
be from the IRS. Because the criminals are
computer savvy, they use graphics from the IRS
website, cite tax statutes, and even portions of
the internal revenue code. Needless to say, these
emails can look very official. They often will
inform you that you are eligible for a refund or
that you qualify for an “early refund
disbursement,” then ask you to click on a link to
get your money. Don’t do it!
Once you click into one of these official looking
websites, you will then likely be asked for
personal information like social security
numbers and bank accounts. This is the same
kind of information that will be asked from you
by a telephone-based criminal scam.
Unfortunately, people who are usually not taken
in by scams like this fall for these tricks because
they're worried that if they don't do what is being asked, they won’t get their refunds. In fact, the
crooks often tell people that exact thing. Don’t
believe them.
The bottom line is that the IRS never sends
unsolicited tax-account related e-mails or
makes unsolicited tax-account related phone
calls asking for your personal information. Anyone who is a target of these tricks should
hang up the phone, or delete the email, and then
report the scam attempt to IRS right away.
Anyone wanting to access the IRS website
(which is full of informative articles and useful
warnings about scams and identity theft), should
type www.IRS.gov directly into their Internet
address window. It is also important to know
that all legitimate IRS web addresses begin with
www.irs.gov.
Those that have received a questionable email or
phone call that claims to come from the IRS
should forward the email or detail the nature of
the phone call at a special email mailbox set-up
by the IRS for this purpose. It is
phishing@irs.gov. If you are unsure of how to
do this correctly, the IRS has posted instructions
in an article titled, “How to Protect Yourself
from Suspicious E-Mails or Phishing Schemes.”
You can find this article by going to the IRS
website and typing “suspicious e-mails” into the
search box in the upper right corner of the front
page. |
