IRS Rebate Phishing Scam

Can you believe it?  There are actually people out there who will IMPERSONATE the IRS to get your personal information!  You may get an email saying that you are due more refund than you originally thought.  When you click the link embedded in the email you are taken to a website that looks like an IRS official website.  Who wouldn’t get excited about getting a larger refund?  IT’S A LIE! 

The address listed in the email does not take you to the IRS website. Instead, you are routed to the website shown above. Note the extra characters in the web address.  This is a phishing scam, which means it’s a website that’s trying to capture your personal information.  The fake website asks questions that would never be requested by the IRS.  For instance, they ask for your Debit Card information on a website form!  In addition, the IRS does not notify you that your IP address is being recorded OR that incorrect inputs are criminally pursued and indicted!  Even though this looks like an official IRS site – it is NOT.

So, if you get one of these emails, or any other notification of this sort, simply delete (or throw away) the correspondence.  The IRS requests that you also notify them of any phishing websites.  You can find more information for contacting them on the IRS “Phishing and ID Theft” web page.  Click here to access that page. 

If you have already submitted information via the fake IRS website, you should check out the following resources for dealing with identity theft:

• Department of the Treasury's identity theft resource page
• Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) consumer Web site
• FTC's OnGuardOnLine Web site

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