December 10, 2008

• Tax Refund Scam

  I cannot believe the audacity of some of the e-mail phishing scammers. Today, in my e-mail box, I received one that appeared to come from the IRS claiming that I had an additional tax refund coming. All I had to do was follow their link to fill out the claim form.

  Thankfully, I'm smart enough to recognize a phishing scam when I see it, but there are a lot of people out there who don't know how. First off, there was a comma in the number amount where in the U.S. we would put a period instead. The other was the link pointed to an odd URL.

  One of the biggest clues to a phishing scam is to mouse over the link they want you to click on and see where it goes. Don't actually click on it, just hold your mouse over it and look at the bottom of your screen (assuming you are using Windows) to see where it leads. If it's taking you to a place that has a bunch of numbers and not a web site that would truly be used by a big agency like the IRS, then don't follow it. They are just gathering information to steal your identity, or rob your bank account, neither of which you want.

  Also look at the actual e-mail address the message is coming from, not just the "display name" that's listed. If it's coming from someplace with an msn, yahoo, gmail or some other free mail client site, it's probably not a legitimate offer. Legitimate businesses generally use their own dot com addresses, not free mail clients.

  Bottom line, like with most things these days: if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

  If you want to report phishing, or if you've been victimized by any other Internet-related crime, you can report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the "File a Complaint" button. It will take you through a series of questions. The FBI agent I spoke to on the phone says it is really hard to catch these people because they are so mobile, but every complaint helps to pinpoint these jerks.

  • 11:42 am
  • 3 Comments