Phishing Reminder Should Serve as Broader Warning

“The holidays and tax season present great opportunities for scam artists to try stealing valuable information through fake emails,” warned IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “Watch your inbox for these sophisticated schemes that try to fool you into thinking they’re from the IRS or our partners in the tax community. Taking a few simple steps can protect yourself during the holiday season and at tax time.”

It is astonishing just how easily a successful phishing scam can ensure enough login, personal, financial and tax information to significantly jeopardise an investor’s financial and retirement plans. Often, all it takes for a scammer to fraudulently claim a refund is due to an individual to initiate a compromise of their data and financial plans when the user follows a fake hyperlink or downloads a malicious file.

This situation is well-demonstrated by the recent “tax transcript” scam in which many taxpayers were duped into opening emails that at first appeared to be from the IRS but were actually the work of criminal networks. This was done in a depressingly familiar way: by tapping directly into people’s biggest financial and retirement planning fears, with emails typically headed with subject lines such as “IRS Important Notice” or “IRS Taxpayer Notice”.

Protect Yourself from Online Scams

The IRS scam warning should serve as a reminder that it is always a good idea to be cautious when receiving correspondence that relates in any way at all to your tax, financial or retirement planning affairs. As such always take the following steps:

• If you receive an email from unknown or uncertain source, do not open it.
• Don’t follow hyperlinks – instead find the page you need through the provider’s trusted home page.
• Use trusted and accredited security software to guard against malware, viruses and phishing scams.
• Ensure you use a unique and sophisticated password to protect your accounts and financial services portals.
• Use as many authentication facilities as possible. If, for example, you need to confirm a security code sent to your phone in order to access or use an account, it reduces the possibility of you becoming the victim of a scam.

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