ESET Ireland has warned that scammers are targeting Irish businesses as the Revenue deadline for tax returns looms.
The company said that it has found an increasing incidence of elaborate faked emails purporting to be form tax and customs services, offering tax refunds.
ESET Ireland said it has seen a steady increase of Revenue-related phishing scams in Irish mailboxes over time. The latest one has been around since last weekend, the company reports, and is cleverly constructed. It appears to come from the email address refund@revenue.ie, which appears legitimate although it is faked and lures potential victims with the following message:
Dear Applicant,
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive tax refund.
To access your tax refund, please download and fill the Tax Refund Form attached to this email – open it in a browser (recommended mozilla firefox or google chrome)
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 2-5 days in order to process it.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. As example, for submitting invalid records or applying over the deadline.
IMPORTANT:
If you find this email in Bulk, Spam or Junk please move it to your inbox as not to jeopardize the future our communication with you. It is essential to receive all emails from us to be in touch.
Sincerely
Anthony Poole.
Irish Revenue Credit Office
TAX REFUND ID: IE461708-REVENUE
Copyright 2014, IRISH Revenue & Customs. All rights reserved.
Below this text it offers a form requesting all personal and banking details, saying ”Please enter your Personal Information and a valid Credit / Debit Card where you want the refund to be made.”
Needless to say, warns ESET, “things will happen to victims accounts if they do this, but ‘receiving a refund’ will NOT be one of those things”.
ESET points to the warning that appears on the Irish Revenue web site, which clearly states: “If you receive an email purporting to be from Revenue and you suspect it to be fraudulent or a scam please forward it to webmaster@revenue.ie. Alternatively, you can contact your tax district to check the status of any refund that may be due.”
It also points out: “Revenue will never send emails which require customers to send personal information via email or pop-up windows.”
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