With tax season in full swing, online crooks are pulling out all the stops to get their hands on your money.
In the latest scam, emails purporting to be from the Internal Revenue Service warn recipients of "discrepancies" in their income tax return, and urge them to remedy the problems by immediately filling out, printing and faxing an attached PDF to a toll-free 800 number, according to Brian Krebs of the Krebs on Security blog.
The scam emails come from irs@irsonline.gov, and read, "This is in reference to your 2010 U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. We seem to have some discrepancies with your filing. If you have already filed for your 2010 tax refund please get hold of a new form 1040 and mail it to the Department of the Treasury in your region."
The form attached in the IRS scam asks for users’ e-File PIN, Social Security number and adjusted gross income — all of which aid the scammers in passing themselves off as authentic taxpayers to the IRS and gaining a direct line to your money.
Fortunately, this trick is easy to avoid.
Krebs warns would-be victims that the IRS never reaches out to taxpayers via unsolicited emails
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