Students were getting Targeted with Emails of Fake Tax Refund by Scammers

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said that university students in thousands were targeted with emails of fake tax refund in an effort to steal their personal and banking details.

As per the tax authority, thousands of reports related to fraud were received by them in a few weeks' time from students in colleges all over the UK. This is for the first time when HMRC has seen university students getting targeted directly by a tax scam attack in such huge volumes, says HMRC.

For avoiding detection, the scammers are taking help of look-a-like genuine email addresses of university such as @uc.ac.uk. Like similar other scams, the fraudsters are sending texts and emails that tells the student regarding a tax refund. Many times, these messages spoofed branding of Gov.UK as well as of famous credit cards in order to look authentic.

If being tricked, the victim clicks a link and enters their personal and banking details. Then this personal information can be used by fraudsters for stealing money from that victim.

HMRC has asked to deactivate 7,500 of these kinds of phishing sites in between April, 2018, to September, 2018. During same period in last year, they made fewer requests (i.e. 5,200) for deactivation.

Mel Stride, financial secretary to the Treasury, said that HMRC never informs anybody regarding tax refunds by text, voicemail or email. In case anyone receives these kinds of messages, remember this is a scam. He also said that the receiver of the message should avoid clicking any links on these messages, and must forward the message to phishing email address (i.e. phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk) of HMRC.

He adds: "although HMRC is cracking down hard on internet scams, criminals will stop at nothing to steal personal information. I'd encourage all students to become phishing aware - it could save you a lot of money".

Pauline Smith, Action Fraud Director, said that "together with HMRC, we work tirelessly to stop fraudsters in their tracks and to prevent unsuspecting members of the public from falling victim to fraud".

Though institutions all over the country are believed to be affected, but the tax authority has called on following particular universities for taking action to raise the awareness now: Aberdeen, Cambridge, Durham, Bristol, Imperial College London, Manchester Metropolitan, King's College London, Newcastle, Plymouth, Southampton, Nottingham, University College London, Queen's (Belfast), Queen Mary (London), Sussex, and Warwick.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/26/2018