U.S. taxpayers will almost certainly fall victim to the latest IRS tax refund phishing scam. I received one in my spam trap this morning. The message reads:
“After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $134.80.
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 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.
To access the form for your tax refund, click here.
Regards,
Internal Revenue Service”
The message contains an authentic IRS logo, but of course the website is phony. Here is an image of the message (click on it to see a full size view):
When you receive messages like this that claim to be from a government institution or financial institution, it’s probably a phony. The best thing to do is mark the message as spam and delete it.
Peter H. Gregory 