Watch Out For The New IRS/US Tax Court Scam Email.
The Internal Revenue Service is going to sue me for not paying enough taxes.
At least, that’s what the email said that I received. However, since I already knew that the IRS does not send unsolicited emails out to people, it was pretty obvious that the email was a fraud. It had the official seal of the U.S. Tax Court, and it told me that I was being sued by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for a deficiency in my taxes. Um, ok! There was a link to click for more information, that I am sure had I clicked on it, would have led me to a site where they would have asked for my bank account information to “pay my taxes”. Had I not know better, I might have fallen victim to this scam that seems to be making the rounds!
According to the website for the U.S. Tax Court, they know all about this scam:
“The United States Tax Court has received many telephone calls regarding an e-mail which purports to originate from the Court being sent by a member of the Tax Court’s practitioner bar. This message is an example of “Spear Phishing”, which is an e-mail spoofing attempt that targets a specific organization. The Tax Court is not disseminating any e-mail notice to anyone who currently has a case before this Court. If you receive an e-mail with a subject line that includes the text, “Notice of Deficiency #” followed by a series of numbers or “US Tax Petition”, along with a malformed docket number following the format #000-000, and a sender address of noreply@ustaxcourt.org, complaints@ustaxcourt.org, or notice@ustaxcourt.org, please ignore/delete the e-mail and do not click any link within the e-mail message.”
So if you happen to get any unsolicited emails from the IRS or the U.S. Tax Court, be aware that they are just phishing for your bank account information and you should either delete them right away or head on over to the REAL agency website to see if they say anything there about these scams. They will never ask you for money in an email, nor will they send you an email that you didn’t know was coming, so be aware!
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Mrs. Micah | Jun 2, 2008 | Reply
My, that first line is gripping.
Thanks for sharing the scam. I probably would have freaked out before checking it out. I don’t trust e-mails from anyone except people I know…but it’s still a jarring opener.
Melvin | Jun 3, 2008 | Reply
People need to be aware of these types of scams.
It looks official and someone that does not know
any better may be enticed to divulge some critical
information and end up parting ways with their
hard earned money.
No one can afford that even when times were not tough.
That type of thing can also subject someone to
identity theft.
Thanks for sharing this valuable information.