This article is from page 25 of the 2009-10-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 25 JPG
A NUMBER of Clare people have been among the victims of an on-line scam which gets its victims to hand over credit-card details on the prom- ise of a tax refund.
A record 83,000 emails offering fake tax refunds were reported to the UK Revenue authorities in Sep- tember. The attacks have continued this month, with an unprecedented 10,000 reports of the fraud made on one day alone.
The UK Revenue confirmed that they have received complaints from
Ireland about the emails and that a number of these have been from people in Clare, including one wom- an whose card details were used fraudulently.
The email tells the recipient they are due a tax refund and then asks for bank account or credit card de- tails. Anyone who gives these details to the fraudsters risks their bank ac- counts being emptied and credit cards maxed to their limit. The victim also risks having their personal details sold on to other criminal gangs.
The ACCA Ireland (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is
also warning tax payers to not reply to the tax refund e-mails. “The UK tax authorities will not communicate with tax payers by e-mail and will not refund tax to a credit card or directly to a bank account based on filling out an on line form, this is a simple scam.” Aidan Clifford, ACCA’s Ad- visory Services Manager, said.
‘The web pages are very convinc- ing and professional looking. Expect any credit card or banks account de- tails supplied to be cleaned out with- in hours of responding”, he said.
Particularly at risk are people who were recently resident in the UK.