The peak season for tax filing and tax refunds is upon us. The season may also bring a surge of official-looking e-mail messages that claim to be from the Internal Revenue Service...but aren't. The IRS is regularly "impersonated" by scammers attempting to trick people into providing bank account or debit card information, and the IRS has issued frequent alerts about these scams.
To review alerts from the Internal Revenue Service about these scams, visit: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=155682,00.html
A Louisville woman forwarded the Better Business Bureau a message that she said was received on February 26th. The message stated:
Dear Applicant:
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $2480.23. 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.
Note: For security reasons, we will record your ip-address, the date and time.
Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.
Regards,
Internal Revenue Service
Copyright 2010, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved.
The woman indicated that when she visited the "form" referenced in the message, she was asked to provide information about her account at a "small" or "hometown" bank, not one of the large banks. These scammers may have believed that their efforts to steal bank account information were more likely to succeed at a smaller bank.
The bottom line is that the IRS will never send you an e-mail stating the amount of your tax refund or any other government payment, nor will the agency ask you to click a link in the e-mail in order to provide bank account, or debit or credit card information.
Even if this e-mail was "error free" in the use of language, grammar, and spelling, it would still be a scam e-mail. But this message, like many phishing and scam e-mails, includes awkward wording and misuse of words, a dead giveaway that this message originated from someone outside the United States and not highly skilled in the English language. The e-mail states, "Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated." Perhaps they meant "criminally pursued and indicted," but who knows. The only thing we know for sure is that these scammers are trying to steal your bank account information and your money.