Revenue Commissioners
The Revenue Commissioners have yesterday (03/01/2014) become aware of fraudulent emails. Same purport to come from Revenue and seek personal information from taxpayers in connection with supposed tax refunds.
These ‘phishing’ emails may be headed ‘Notice of Tax Return,’ ‘Tax Return for year 2013,’ or ‘Notice of Tax Refund.’
Phishing (Pronounced Fishing) is a scam where bogus emails are sent to people in order to trick them into revealing personal or financial information. If an unwary person follows a link in the email, they will be taken to a fake web page, which will try to trick them into entering personal information such as a PIN, a password, a PPS number or other bank account information. That information may then be used in various ways, e.g. to apply for credit card in the person’s name, or write cheques from their bank account.
Phishing emails may pretend to come from various government departments such as Revenue, Social Welfare, Banks, Credit Card companies and Online Shops. They may contain what appears to be realistic logos and very official sounding text. They may even carry a warning about phishing.
Note: Revenue officials are forbidden to send emails which require their customers to send personal information via email or pop-up windows. Any person therefore who receives such an email which purports to be from a government department like Revenue and suspect that same is fraudulent or a scam should simply delete it the content from their mailbox. Anyone who is currently awaiting a tax refund should now contact their local Revenue Office to check its present status immediately.
Note: Anyone who may have already foolishly provided such personal information in response to these fraudulent emails, should now contact their bank or credit card company immediately.
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