If you ever receive an email claiming to be coming from the HMRC, the first thing you need to check is the address of the sender, if it is genuinely from the revenue service. Do not click any links that take you away from that email to some website before you have fully and absolutely verified that it is an authentic correspondence.
Here is the biggest scare: even an email address that tells you that it is coming from @hmrc.gov.uk, can be coming from the lowest pit of hell, and disguised as something real, when it is nothing close to that. Email addresses can be spoofed up, to appear like they are coming from a familiar person. This trick is known as spoofing.
So what if I click, what do I loose? You can loose everything on your account as the website you land on can be infected with hackware (malicious software) that jumps out onto your computer and steals anything between data and money.
An email such as the one below is from a hacker.
So how do I avoid this? You may ask. The simple method you can adopt is that of deleting any such email, and cross checking any detail with that which is registered in your HMRC online account, whence all and any communications are saved. If the email copy is not in your online account it can only be fake. DO NOT OPEN, DELETE AND BLOCK, is the advisory we can give today. Email example:
HM-Revenue-Customs-HMRCgovuk-taxpayer-ukleen.vandenbulcke@telenet.beTo:sc*****@hotmail.co.ukWed 11/08/2021 00:28TaxPayer
We would like to notify you that you still have an outstanding tax refund of 240.00 GBP from overpaid tax from year ending 2021,despite our previous letters regarding your refund we are yet to receive your claim.
Requests for refunds are time limited please use the link below to complete your claim online also note the following:
-Reference No: 6251924/TAX80802-UKwci
-We can only process a refund for the tax year we have detailed above
-You have until the August 11, 2021 to make your claim.
Government Gateway account.
Regards, Sarah Kilvington