IRS Warns of Phony E-Mails
Claiming to Come from IRS
The Internal Revenue Service has alerted taxpayers about Internet scams in
which fraudulent e-mails are sent that appear to be from the IRS.
The e-mails direct the consumer to a Web link that requests personal and
financial information, such as Social Security, bank account or credit card
numbers. The practice of tricking victims into revealing private personal and
financial information over the Internet is known as “phishing” for information.
The IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails or ask for detailed personal and
financial information. Additionally, the IRS never asks people for the PIN
numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card,
bank or other financial accounts.
The information fraudulently obtained by scammers is used to steal the
taxpayer’s identity and then his or her financial assets. Generally, identity
thieves use someone’s personal data to steal his or her financial accounts, run
up charges on the victim’s existing credit cards, apply for new loans, credit
cards, services or benefits in the victim’s name and even file fraudulent tax
returns to obtain refunds rightfully belonging to the victim.
“Don’t be fooled by these shameless scam artists. The IRS doesn’t send
unsolicited e-mail,” said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. “Always exercise
caution when you receive unsolicited e-mails or e-mails from senders you don’t
know, and always verify the source.”
Last year, the IRS established an electronic mail box,
phishing@irs.gov, to receive copies of
possibly fraudulent e-mails involving misuse of the IRS name, logo or Web site
for investigation. Since the establishment of the mail box, the IRS has received
more than 17,700 e-mails from taxpayers reporting more than 240 separate
phishing incidents. To date, investigations by the Treasury Inspector General
for Tax Administration (TIGTA) have identified host sites in at least 27
different countries, as well as in the United States.
In the on-going e-mail schemes that use the IRS name, about which the IRS has
warned the public before, the recipients are asked to click on links to take
them to the “IRS” Web site. The links appear authentic and connect the victim to
sites that resemble the genuine IRS Web site (www.irs.gov).
The sites then prompt the victim for personal identifiers, credit card numbers,
PIN numbers or similar financial information. The phony sites appear legitimate
because most of the images and content are copied from actual pages on the
genuine IRS Web site before being modified by the fraudsters to include their
loaded questions.
The schemes have a few variations. In one, the bogus e-mail tells the recipient
that he or she is eligible to receive a federal tax refund for a given amount
(often $63.80) and sends the recipient to a Web site to complete a form to
“submit the tax refund request.” The form then asks for the personal and
financial information.
The IRS does not notify taxpayers of refunds via e-mail. Additionally,
taxpayers do not have to complete a special form or provide detailed financial
information to obtain a refund. Refunds are based on information contained on
the federal income tax return filed by the taxpayer.
In another scheme, the e-mail states that the IRS’s “Antifraud Comission”
(sic) has found that someone tried to pay their taxes through the Electronic
Federal Tax Payment System, or EFTPS, using the e-mail recipient’s credit card
and that, as a result, some of the recipient’s money was lost and the remaining
“founds” (sic) were blocked. The e-mail contains visual elements copied from the
genuine IRS Web site in an attempt to make the e-mail appear legitimate. The
e-mail includes a link that sends the recipient to a Web site that asks the
recipient to enter personal and financial information, such as SSN and account
numbers, in order to unblock their funds.
The IRS does not have an Antifraud Commission, does not have the authority to
freeze a taxpayer’s credit card or bank account because of potential theft or
fraud perpetrated against the taxpayer, and does not use e-mail to initiate
contact with taxpayers.
A third, recent scheme asks the recipient to wire thousands of dollars in
order to retrieve the winnings on a lottery. One such e-mail instructed the
recipient to wire $42,000 to retrieve the winnings on a British lottery. This
e-mail used a simulated IRS letterhead with the actual address of an IRS office
at 290 Broadway, Manhattan, NYC, in an attempt to persuade the recipient of the
legitimacy of the e-mail.
The IRS does not handle lottery distributions and does not initiate contact
with taxpayers via e-mail. Additionally, lottery winnings are generally reported
by the winner to the IRS with his or her annual federal income tax return, at
which time any taxes due must be paid.
Recipients of questionable e-mails claiming to come from the IRS should not
open any attachments or click on any links contained in the e-mails. Instead,
they should forward the e-mails to
phishing@irs.gov (the instructions may be found on IRS.gov by entering the
term phishing in the search box) or notify TIGTA’s toll-free hotline at
1-800-366-4484. The IRS and TIGTA work with the U.S. Computer Emergency
Readiness Team (US-CERT) and various Internet service providers and
international CERT teams to have the phishing sites taken offline as soon as
they are reported.
Recently, the IRS has become aware of commercial Internet sites that bear a
striking resemblance to the real IRS site or that contain the some form of the
IRS name in their address but with a .com, .net, .org or other designation in
the address instead of .gov. Though these sites may not be phishing sites --
that is, they may not request private financial data in an attempt to steal the
consumer’s identity -- the IRS urges consumers not to be misled into thinking
such sites are the genuine IRS Web site or have some connection to the real IRS.
The only genuine IRS Web site is IRS.gov.
More information on phishing schemes and others, including abusive tax
avoidance transactions, frivolous arguments and more, may be found on the
Compliance and Enforcement page at IRS.gov.
|
