Spam Warning – HM Revenue & Customs – Please Submit Your Refund Payment
Hi Everyone here is a new spam that is circulating and very difficult to know it is spam. Please tell as many people about this as it’s a very clever one.
Note: you may find that the ‘£’ amount changes, this is a good indicator of spam.
Note: It also has an attached form called ‘Refund_Form.html’ which you shouldn’t even attempt to open
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Dear Applicant:
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 159.46 GBP Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-6 days in order to process it.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.
Please submit the form attached to your email in order to complete your tax refund
Best Regards,
HM Revenue & Customs
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© Copyright 2009, HM Revenue & Customs UK All rights reserved.
TAX REFUND ID: A29L121
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Stay Safe
Alan Fair
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Hi ,
Thanks for the heads up. I was just about to call HM Customs about it. I am going to send it away as Spam now.
I’m glad it’s helped you out. Now for the other million people who don’t know it’s spam. At least you were going to call HM Revenue and Customs as they would have told you it was spam, most people just use the form.
Thanks for the heads up + 1! How on earth does this scam work? I’ve looked at the source code for that HTML document and apart from the images, I can’t see any URLs pointing anywhere other than HMRC! Although there are a few images in there which point to some strange site… Hope too many people haven’t been caught out with this one
Hi Adam,
It was just a few well chosen links in the attached form that was the dangerous part of this, and why this was a particularly nasty spam email as it had a lot of convincers. When you fill out the form your details are sent elsewhere and they can use those details to get more info or steal your identity. The blog seems to have got a lot of hits on this particular spam email so hopefully very few people have been caught out by it.
It is getting harder and harder to spot a fake email these days, which is why I figured I’d start to write about how to identify them, so I’m glad it’s helped you out.
Stay Safe
Alan
Thanks for the warning, I am very Sceptical about any email offering money. However, I still opened the form but something prompted me to stop and investigate further. Alarm bells rang when I was asked for my card details (something that is rarely done on a unsecure web page). Your post was very helpful in confirming the rule of thumb for most things “if it sounds to good to be true then it probably is”. Thanks again for taking the time to pass on the warning.
So what happens if you complte fake details?
Well depending on what they ask for they could get your bank details and enough information to steal your identity, which could be worth a lot to them. for example getting loans or credit cards in your name or directly taking money out your bank account. So it’s not great if they do manage to get that information.
I hope that clears up your query.
Alan Fair
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