IRS Scam Alert

Yesterday, John received this email.

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that
you are eligible to receive a status refund of $279,15.

Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-6 days in order to process it.

To access the form for your status refund, please click here


Regards,
Internal Revenue Service

Copyright 2007, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved.

He sent it to me asking if it looked legit because it was suspicious to him. (Looking at it again, the comma in the place of the decimal point is a huge give-away. Everybody in the world but the US uses a comma instead of a decimal point when writting money amounts. This email originated somewhere else in the world...maybe even Peru.)

I emailed friend Carol who is in charge of our stateside stuff to see if she had received anything in the mail for us from the IRS. She hadn't, confirmed that it seemed suspicious and sent me the official link to the IRS.

Just to see what the link in the email was, I clicked on it. Up came a website that looked exactly like the official IRS website with a form requesting my DEBIT CARD info. Oh really? Since when did the IRS need our debit card numbers? I tried to navigate the site and every button I clicked gave me, what do you think? THE SAME PAGE. So creative. They really wanted that debit card. Foiled again.

Below is a quote I snagged from the official IRS website regarding suspicious email activity.

The IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails or ask for detailed personal information via e-mail. 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.

Tricking consumers into disclosing their personal and financial information, such as secret access data or credit card or bank account numbers, is fraudulent activity which can result in identity theft. Such schemes perpetrated through the Internet are called “phishing” for information.

The information fraudulently obtained is then used to steal the taxpayer’s identity and financial assets. Typically, identity thieves use someone’s personal data to empty the victim’s 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.

Nice.
So this is a "consider yourself warned" post.
Have a great day!