IRS Tax Refund Phishing Scam

There is a new e-mail scam recently reported to us by a client. The e-mail appears to be sent from the Internal Revenue Service proclaiming the recipient is eligible to receive a refund of $93.82. What the recipient needs to do is submit a request for the refund. The refund will be directly deposited into your checking/savings account through your debit card linked to the account.

There is a link that you are supposed to click in order to access the form and fill in your information. This even appears to be an IRS web page.

They did a good job in attempting to make this look official. Notice in the example below that it appears to be coming from an official irs.gov location. The wording even sounds official, but do not be fooled!!

The first sign this is a scam is that the IRS would not be contacting you by e-mail. Even though it makes sense to us to use e-mail, the IRS still submits all correspondence by mail carrier. Unless you submitted your e-mail address in your tax return, the IRS will not have your address and will not want to go through the work of locating it.

The second sign is that the IRS is very specific in what they are contacting you about. In the example below you will see a copy of one of the e-mails received. Notice in the subject they use "Form 1040XYS". If the IRS were contacting you regarding a refund, they would state specifically which form you used to file with (i.e. Form 1040, Form 1040A, or Form 1040EZ).

It also states "After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity". Again, the IRS will be specific in which period they are contacting you for. They will not state fiscal activity either, but instead state the month, day and year in which your form is reporting.

The third sign is in the secure web location they are referring you to. Notice that the irs.gov is not the first address listed in the location; this is a little easier than an earlier version of this scam. The IRS used to have a glitch in their website that actually allowed hackers to use a valid IRS web page to be rerouted to their own web page. The glitch has since been fixed, which allows you to spot the less official looking location.

Certain e-mail programs allow you to put in any form of contact information you wish to use. This is how the scam artists make it appear to be coming from an official irs.gov location.

Even though these tips are designed for you to spot phishing scams on IRS refunds, they can also assist you in spotting other phishing scams. The first question you should always ask yourself is why are they contacting you by e-mail? If it appears to be coming from your bank or some other source, contact them some other way to be sure this is legitimate.

Example: