BCC Cautions Internauts about Tax Themed Phishing Campaign
Birmingham City Council recently issued an alert telling people for being vigilant of a malicious e-mail campaign informing about tax rebates from the council, while asking for personal information, published birminghamnewsroom.com dated June 24, 2013.
It maybe noted that Birmingham City Council represents England's government in the locality while providing the Birmingham City with governance.
A certain inhabitant, who had got an e-mail with the sender's address showing as birminghamrebate@hotmail.com that actually wasn't BCC's e-mail id, notified BCC.
Addressing the recipient informally, the spurious e-mail told him that the city council had examined his records, including his living expenses, house rent and taxes he was incurring for 2011-12. Apparently, representing the rebate team of Birmingham City, the writer expressing pleasure in notifying the user that some refund was eligible for him, asserted that the team had made failed attempts to contact him on his earlier address; hence, it thought he might've gone abroad after finishing his studies. However, for getting his refund for 2011-12 amounting 3,405 pounds, the user required providing his full name, method of payment, his telephone number and contact address. The writer then mentioned the claim deadline as June 31, 2013.
A Spokesman of BCC commented that the method applied in the e-mail fraud for acquiring someone's personal information was extremely crude and luckily the person alerted officials about the incidence fast. B31.org.uk published this dated June 24, 2013.
Disturbingly, phishers find the tax-filing period as a very rich phase during any year for targeting taxpayers, remark BCC's officials.
Elaborating on how the above scams work, they add that scammers craft an e-mail, supposedly a message by tax body of the locality, like BCC in the above instance. Exploiting the authority and credibility of the tax agency, the phishers lure victims towards divulging personal information such as account details, credentials for accessing phone/Internet banking, along with whole credit-card information, in addition to address and telephone. Such assaults are capable of being extremely elaborate and ultimately letting scammers towards planning one more widespread range of ID-theft cases.
Overall, BCC advises Internet-users for ignoring such scam electronic mails while informing about them to the council.
ยป SPAMfighter News - 6/28/2013
