IRS Warns Taxpayers About A New Scam
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and its Security Summit partners have issued a warning to taxpayers about a new scam attempt. This scam involves a fraudulent letter with IRS heading sent by mail using a delivery service. The letter asks the recipients to send photos of their driver’s license, Social Security card, and bank account information to verify their identity in order to receive a refund. The identity thieves can try to obtain a tax refund and other sensitive financial information by using these photos.
What the Scammers Attempt To Do?
This scam is an attempt to steal personal and financial information from taxpayers. Meanwhile, the IRS and its partners remind taxpayers that they will never contact them by mail, phone, email, or text message to ask for personal or financial information. Consequently, taxpayers should never provide such information to anyone who contacts them unsolicited. In addition, they should report any suspicious communications to the IRS or the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
What Should You Do if You Receive Scam Mailing?
If you receive this scam mailing, you should not respond to it. In addition, you should also check your credit reports and bank accounts for any unauthorized activity, and report any identity theft or fraud to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and your local police department.
For more information on how to protect yourself from tax-related scams, click here.
Conclusions
In conclusion, you, as a taxpayer should be careful and watch out for red flags that can make you suspicious about the mail received. There are a few details that you should pay attention to, like:
- you are asked to send sensitive information,
- the letter includes contact information and a phone number that do not belong to the IRS,
- wrong punctuation,
- unprofessional wording and incorrect spelling,
- mixture of fonts, which is something that IRS does not use, as you can see in this example of scam wording: “A Clear Phone of Your Driver’s License That Clearly Displays All Four (4) Angles, Taken in a Place with Good Lighting”.
In any case, you should be aware that the IRS never initiates contact with taxpayers by email, text or social media regarding a bill or a tax refund.
Furthermore, if you receive a suspicious email, text or letter, you should contact the IRS directly. You should use the contact information found on the official IRS website at https://www.irs.gov/help/telephone-assistance and check the status of your account or your refund.
The IRS also warns us to be careful of unsolicited texts or emails that appear to be from friends or family, using possibly stolen or compromised accounts. In this situation, you should report these scam attempts to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov. Include:
- the email address or
- the caller ID of the unsolicited communication source,
- your email or phone number on which you received the suspicious messages,
- the date and time you received the communication
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This material is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute tax, legal or accounting advice.