The e-mail has an official-looking Internal Revenue Service logo and a bureaucratic tone promising a small sum of money.
“After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $63.80,” it says.
The offer – which has been making the Internet rounds since late last year – sounds good. But it is fake.
The IRS doesn't send e-mails like that, and it doesn't tell taxpayers when they are owed money, said San Diego-based IRS spokesman Raphael Tulino.
“You can rest assured that's a scam,” Tulino said, suggesting taxpayers forward the fake e-mails to phishing@irs.gov, an address the agency set up to help track down such scams.
Investigators are trying to trace the e-mails to the source, he said.
“We're collecting these things and trying to find out where they're coming from,” Tulino said.
Such fake e-mails are rising in popularity, and the IRS isn't the only cover electronic scammers use. Others purport to come from banks, credit card companies and the eBay auction Web site.
They are all after one thing: your money.
The e-mails are cleverly written and formatted so they appear to come from a legitimate source. They link to bogus Web sites set up to collect financial information that then can be used for identity theft.
The IRS said investigators in February had found Web sites linked to this scam in at least 11 countries. Updated figures were unavailable last week.
Among computer experts and fraud investigators, the practice is known as phishing.
Unlike e-mails that claim to be from Nigeria and other countries promising millions of dollars in exchange for help in recovering supposedly frozen bank accounts, these e-mails don't promise huge riches.
Tulino noted the small refund amount offered in the bogus IRS e-mail.
“The bottom line is, IRS rarely uses e-mail,” he said. “It's not a secure method of communication with the taxpayer.”
The agency relies on phone calls, faxes and, most of all, letters sent through the Postal Service, to get in touch with taxpayers.
It's up to taxpayers to keep track of their refunds, Tulino said. The IRS doesn't contact taxpayers about money they are owed.
“We just don't do that,” he said.
Other phishing e-mails tell recipients that their accounts have been frozen because of identity theft or other problems. They tell recipients to log on and provide their financial information to solve the problem.
Fraud experts suggest that users be wary of such e-mails and forward them to the companies they purport to come from to help investigators.
It is never a good idea to use links in e-mails to access company Web sites, they say. Scammers have set up elaborate Web sites that look a lot like the real thing.
Instead, computer users should open a new browser window and type in the Internet address themselves.
Some companies, such as Bank of America, have fought back against the phishing scams and bogus Web sites by using a sort of reverse password to assure customers they have accessed their legitimate Web site.
As far as the IRS is concerned, the vast majority of those among the 130 million U.S. taxpayers who were eligible for refunds this year already have received them, Tulino said.
But those who are wondering about money they are owed can check by going to the agency's Web site, www.irs.gov, and clicking on the “Where's my refund?” link.
Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
