personal finance

900,000 taxpayers report scam attempts to HMRC in past year


Almost 900,000 people received scam emails, texts or calls purporting to be from the UK tax authority in the past year, HM Revenue & Customs has revealed, as it urged the public to be vigilant in the run-up to January 31’s tax return deadline.

HMRC said the most common scam — reported by more than 620,000 people — was the unexpected offer of a tax rebate by phone, text or email. Victims were directed to phishing websites bearing the HMRC logo, designed to trick them into disclosing personal information, including their bank details, address, date of birth and mother’s maiden name, enabling their money to be stolen.

More than 100,000 of the fraud attempts reported to HMRC concerned phone scams, where criminals posing as HMRC staff threatened victims with arrest or imprisonment if fictitious tax bills were not paid.

HMRC was unable to say how many of these incidents resulted in financial loss. However, £56m was lost to impersonation scams in the first half of this year, where criminals posed as police, bank staff or other officials, according to figures from UK Finance, the banking association.

“Genuine organisations like HMRC and banks will never contact customers asking for their Pin, password or bank details,” said HMRC. “Customers should never give out private information, reply to text messages, download attachments or click on links in texts or emails which they are not expecting.”

To help shut down fraud attempts, the tax authority has set up a dedicated email address — phishing@hmrc.gov.uk — that members of the public can use to report scams. Those who have experienced financial loss should contact Action Fraud via their online fraud reporting tool.

Sarah Coles, personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, described the next few months as “open season for scammers”.

“At this time of year we see a surge in tax return scams, because fraudsters know it’s on many people’s minds,” she said.

“The general rule of thumb is always to assume contact is bogus. If you think there may be some truth in it, call the self-assessment helpline and check where you stand.”

To protect taxpayers from scams, HMRC has introduced controls to prevent criminals from spoofing well-known 0300 helpline numbers. In addition, HMRC has used SMS firewalls, which prevent scam texts from being delivered.

“The trouble is that criminals can make serious money from HMRC rip offs,” Ms Coles added. “As long as there’s money to be made, they’ll be throwing their effort and technological skill into developing ever more sophisticated scams to get around these protections.”

Gareth Shaw, head of money at consumer group Which?, said more needed be done to protect consumers from fraudulent activity.

“A new [voluntary] industry code is in place, offering greater protections against transfer fraud, but the next government must make this mandatory to ensure all payment providers are signed up to these vital measures.”



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