Would you believe it, it’s January and you’re skint. then the Tax man emails you to say that you’ve got a rebate! Sounds wonderful but sadly it’s a scam!
Firstly, the Tax man will send you a letter and not email you! Secondly, are you due a rebate?
The email itself might look very official and include links to the real HMRC website, but it’s a phishing website.
One of the things that you can do if you receive emails from official bodies is to check the email address, this one was from hm@rc.com. That’s the wrong email as anything from the Tax man would at least have .gov.uk at the end.
Here’s the text of the email!
www.hmrc.gov.uk
Date 28 january 2013
Our Ref. C/048763/13
Your Ref. 10B/3455/13
NOTICE OF TAX RETURN FOR YEAR 2012
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am sending this email to announce: After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax return of:
£197.47
To receive your return, you need to create a TAX Gateway account.
To register click on the link below:
https://online.hmrc.gov.uk/registration/taxgatewayaccount
Our head office address can be found on our web site at HM Revenue & Customs: www.hmrc.gov.uk
Luckily for me my web browser (Chrome) blocked the links and informed me that it wouldn’t let me gain access to the website as it had been reported as a phishing website. Don’t forget that your email provider should automatically place it into the spam folder.
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