{"id":364,"date":"2018-03-08T15:23:26","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T18:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vertices.tinyboat.com\/?p=364"},"modified":"2024-07-19T18:13:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T17:13:06","slug":"hmrc-tax-refund-fraud-beware-of-phishing-emails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/hmrc-tax-refund-fraud-beware-of-phishing-emails\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018HMRC\u2019 tax refund fraud: beware of phishing emails"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Fake \u2018HMRC\u2019 tax refund emails are once again flooding inboxes. We\u2019ll show you how to spot a fake tax rebate email.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>According to Wikipedia, \u201c<em>Phishing\u00a0is the attempt to obtain\u00a0sensitive information\u00a0such as usernames, passwords, and\u00a0credit card\u00a0details (and\u00a0<\/em><em>money<\/em><em>), often for\u00a0malicious\u00a0reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an\u00a0electronic communication<\/em>\u201c.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>And the time when bogus emails were poorly designed and easily spotted is coming to an end. In a tax rebate scam spotted by our Senior Accountant in early March 2018, not only the letter attached is almost free of the common silly mistakes, but a website created as an almost perfect copy of the HMRC is jaw dropping.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>After seeing many different scam and bogus emails it is safe to say that this is one of the closest to perfection scams \u2013 and proportionally dangerous. Let\u2019s break it down so you can learn how to spot fake communication in the future.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The email is written to convince you that it is private, confidential and secure. Even though the Symantec sign is explained to be from an anti virus, it is more of a visual impact to give the feeling of trust in the source. However, spelling mistakes leave room for questions and, looking closely, what is really suspicious is the sender address \u2013 nowhere near from the HMRC official domain:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>So far nothing impressive. That\u2019s until you open the letter attached to the email:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>With the HM Revenue &amp; Customs logo, date and the Crown, it becomes very convincing that the communication is from an official and trusted source.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The instructions point to a supposedly HMRC website in which you \u201cneed to create a Government Gateway account\u201d. That is the trap to get credit card details.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>When you get to the website things get impressively similar to the original, especially for those who don\u2019t need to access HMRC website on a regular basis. Once again, the domain on the website is the confirmation that this has nothing to do with the official Government portal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/17WR7aBdFZA\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>With a quick search on google you can find dozens of different attempts like this one. If you\u2019re unsure of whether or not you can trust any email, here are some tips that can save you a lot of trouble:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li><strong>Check the sender email<\/strong><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Usually emails from the HMRC should come from an email like\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:refunds@hmrc.gov.uk\"><em>refunds@hmrc.gov.uk<\/em><\/a><em>,\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"mailto:hmrc@gov.uk\"><em>hmrc@gov.uk<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"mailto:secure@hmrc.co.uk\"><em>secure@hmrc.co.uk<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em>\u00a0Anything too long, full of letters and numbers is normally wrong.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t give your personal information<\/strong>\u00a0or credit card details online unless you are certain it is a trusted website.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li><strong>Seek for help<\/strong><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In case you receive any suspicious emails, make sure you send it to\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk\">phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk<\/a>\u00a0before deleting it. It will help the HMRC to investigate and tackle such crimes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In case you are unsure about what you received, feel free to speak with one of our accountants and we\u2019ll be happy to help.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Fraudsters trying to get your money claiming they\u2019re from HMRC is nothing new, so we have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/beware-of-fake-hmrc-notice-about-tax-refund\/\">this other post about it<\/a>with other examples.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Share this article so others around you will know what to do, too.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fake \u2018HMRC\u2019 tax refund emails are once again flooding inboxes. We\u2019ll show you how to spot a fake tax rebate email. According to Wikipedia, \u201cPhishing\u00a0is the attempt to obtain\u00a0sensitive information\u00a0such as usernames, passwords, and\u00a0credit card\u00a0details (and\u00a0money), often for\u00a0malicious\u00a0reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an\u00a0electronic communication\u201c. And the time when bogus emails were poorly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-tax-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verticeservices.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}