This article is more than 1 year old

Taxman warns on phone fraud

Look this gift horse in the mouth

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is warning people not to fall for unsolicited phone calls claiming to be offering tax rebates.

The scammers, mirroring an almost identical email spam campaign, phone up and request bank details in order to pay over the tax rebate.

If the mark is gullible enough to hand over bank details they risk losing their money, and their details will probably then be sold on to other crooks.

Chris Hopson, director of customer contact at the Rev, said: “We only ever contact customers who are due a tax refund in writing by post. We never use telephone calls, emails or external companies in these circumstances. We strongly urge anyone receiving such a phone call not to give any information to the caller, but report it to the police straight away."

HMRC said recent weeks have seen a resurgence in the fake rebate emails too - it has shut down 180 websites which were sending out the spam. Anyone receiving such an email should forward it to the Revenue then delete it.

HMRC's statement is here.

There is more security advice from the Rev here.

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like