Beware of e-mails for Tax Refund Scam

The Revenue Commissioners have issued a warning urging individuals to be wary about fraudulent emails purporting to come from Revenue.  The scam mails seek personal information from taxpayers in connection with a tax refund are headed ‘Important Message – Tax Refund’.

Revenue have advised that these emails did not issue from them. The Revenue Commissioners does not request personal information to be sent to them via email or pop-up windows. If you receive an email purporting to be from Revenue and suspect it to be fraudulent you should delete it immediately. Those awaiting a tax refund are advised to contact their local Revenue Office to check the status of their claim. If you have been a victim of these fraudulent e-mails and have provided personal information in response you should contact your bank or credit card company immediately.

Revenue Secure Email

Sending unencrypted e-mail is always risky.  Emails sent to Revenue by regular email travel over the internet which is an open system and can potentially be viewed by third parties.  Therefore, Revenue have a policy not to send emails containing any sensitive information even in response to an email which has been sent to Revenue requesting information from the individual concerned.

Correspondence with Revenue by email will become even more common place from July 2013 with the introduction of LPT by deduction from wages/salary as the onus of reporting to Revenue rests with each employer if an employee has insufficient wages/salary from which to deduct LPT.

As a result, the Revenue Commissioners have implemented a secure system for sending email and recommend that it is used for all email correspondence with them. Messages sent to Revenue via the secure system will be automatically encrypted ensuring that they cannot be viewed by a third party.  In responding, Revenue will also use the encrypted system  For further information on registering for Revenue Secure Email visit: http://revenue-secure-email.html