Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
New tax credits scam to watch out for
Jasmine Birtles
20th May 2013
Do you receive tax credits? Do you know about the new tax credits scam?
If you do receive tax credits then you must be on the alert for scam emails being sent out by fraudsters pretending to be the HMRC (Revenue and Customs).
Basically they want to get your card details and passwords.
About 22,000 ‘phishing’ emails have been reported to HMRC during the tax credit renewals period from April to July last year.
Now HMRC think the same sort of thing will happen this year as claimants update the tax authority’s records.
So beware!
HMRC says it never asks for personal or payment information by email.
One way you can tell if the email is false is that the phishing emails often promise money back. They include a link, which actually diverts the you to a fake HMRC website. From here, they gather personal information, then try to take money from your account.
About 147 scam websites were closed down last year in countries around the world. But that’s nowhere near enough. More start up all the time and they keep coming up with new and cleverer ways to deceive us.
“HMRC will never ask you to disclose personal or payment information by email,” said Nick Lodge, director general of benefits and credits at HMRC. “We are committed to your online security, but the methods fraudsters use to obtain information are constantly changing, so you need to be alert.”
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