Great news, you’ve loaded up your email this morning to find an email and a form from HMRC advising you of a tax rebate, all you need to do is fill out the form and send it back online and the money will be with you shortly.

STOP!

It’s a scam. HMRC will never send notifications of a tax rebate via email, or ask you to disclose personal information via email. At the time that most people have just filed their tax returns you can expect to receive a few of these. If you do, please delete them straight away and do not click on any of the links in the emails. More information can be found here

If you do think that you are due a tax rebate call HMRC directly to discuss it with one of their call centre agents

I’ve just been informed from a credible source in the Rotary and Inner Wheel Club about a new postal scam which is doing the rounds at the moment. Right at the time when people are expecting to receive parcels through the post as they begin to buy presents for Christmas:

If you get a card pushed through your door from a company called ADS asking you to ring them about a parcel which they couldn’t deliver, ignore it. The number is linked to an 09 number which could end up costing you over £300

At a time when people are ordering lots of parcels it may be easy to forget what hasn’t arrived yet. Create a checklist of what you have ordered and where you have ordered it from. If you are in any doubt as to if a parcel is waiting for you to collect, contact the supplier you ordered from or your local Royal Mail sorting office if that parcel wasn’t sent via courier.

I’m sure that we’ve all had an e-mail recently from a poor farmer in Nigeria who just happens to need $50m of his late father’s estate keeping safe whilst the paperwork is sorted out, and that we will get a cut of this money for ‘doing nothing’. All we need to do is send him our bank account details and he’ll make the transfer. These examples of Phising are really easy to spot. But now it seems that people are using HMRC to rip people off.

You will receive an email from HMRC informing you that you are entitled to a tax rebate. All you need to do is follow a link, fill in your details on the HMRC website and you’ll have the money put back in your account. IT’S A SCAM. HMRC will NEVER inform you that you are due a tax rebate by email. The best thing you can do is delete the email. I actually had someone ring me a few months ago claiming to be from the MOD who had control of the HMRC bank accounts and that they were going to make a repayment into my bank account for some overpaid tax; all he needed were my debit card details and the CVC number from the back of my card…….

This page on the HMRC website gives examples of the emails and email addesses these scams will come from, but the easiest thing to do is ignore any emails you get from HMRC claiming you are due a tax rebate. If you are still unsure RING HMRC YOURSELF eventually after pressing, 1, 2, 3 and 1 again you will get through to a human being who will be able to help you.