US individual taxpayer: be alert to a new scam involving unclaimed refunds.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and its coalition of state tax administrators and tax software developers would like you to be alert to a new scam mailing.
HOW DO THE SCAMMERS OPERATE
Fraudsters will send you a cardboard envelope from a delivery service. They will ask you to provide sensitive personal information so you can receive a tax refund that you haven’t claimed. The letter in the envelope includes:
- The IRS masthead and wording that the notice is about “your unclaimed refund”.
- Contact information and phone number that do not belong to the IRS.
In the letter, the fraudsters will instruct you to provide the following filing information in order to get your refund:
- A copy of your driver’s license;
- A copy of a voided check, or a preprinted bank account routing number and account number;
- The type of bank account information that you provide;
- Your cellphone number;
- Your social security number.
The letter invites you to provide this information to a filing Agent. He or she will supposedly help you submit your unclaimed property claim. And they want you to be on the lookout for a response from the Agents.
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT IS NOT REALLY THE IRS THAT IS WRITING
If you read the letter carefully, you’ll note that:
- It is poorly written.
- Some of the requests are awkwardly worded.
- It contains a variety of warning signs: the punctuation is odd, the use of the uppercase is awkward, the fonts are mixed up.
- It contains inaccurate statements such as October 17 to submit your unclaimed property claim. The IRS doesn’t handle “unclaimed property”. The Federal tax agency handles income tax refunds.
HOW CAN YOU TELL WHETHER IT IS REALLY THE IRS THAT IS CONTACTING.
What the real IRS does
The real IRS will publish general information on the estimated amount of refunds that you and other taxpayers haven’t claimed for a given tax year. It will indicate the deadline to file your tax returns and to potentially get a refund. Learn more (lien de l’article “Individual taxpayer – You have until July 17th, 2023 to claim your 2019 tax refund.”)
What the real IRS doesn’t do
The real IRS will never
- Initiate contact with you by email, text or social media regarding a bill or tax refund
- Ask you to provide your sensitive personal confidential information by mail to get a refund.
What you can do to avoid scammers
The Summit Partners invite you to be on your guard:
- Never click on any unsolicited communication claiming to be the IRS. If you click, you may surreptitiously load malware. Malicious hackers may also upload ransomware and take over your computer.
- Never respond to tax-related phishing or smishing or click on the URL link.
- Be wary of messages that appear to be from friends or family. They may be stolen or compromised email or text accounts from someone they know. You should verify the identity of the person who is sending the message through another communication channel. You can for instance call a number you independently know to be accurate, not the number provided in the email or text.
What to do if you are a victim of a scam
You should report tax-related phishing or smishing by sending the email or a copy of the text/SMS as an attachment to phishing@irs.gov. The IRS recommends you include in your report the caller ID (email or phone number), date, time and time zone, and the number that received the message.
You can also report scams to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration or the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The Report Phishing and Online Scams page at IRS.gov provides complete details. The Federal Communications Commission’s Smartphone Security Checker is a useful tool against mobile security threats.
In 2015 the IRS joined forces with representatives of state tax agencies and the tax community, including tax preparation firms, software developers, payroll and tax financial product processors, tax professional organizations and financial institutions to combat identity theft refund fraud to protect American taxpayers. Five years later, in 2019, the number of taxpayers who file identity theft affidavits was down from 677,000 to 137,000 (80%).