Warning Issued to the General Public by HMRC to BEWARE of Self Assessment Tax Scams

Welcome to iCalculators monthly Self assessment guide and news for December 2019. In this month's news we take a look at:

1. Over 900,000 complaints received by HMRC for self assessment scams.
2. HMRC urges customers to be alert of these scams.
3. The techniques that are generally used by the fraudsters.
4. Further steps that can be taken by the general public in case of suspicious contact.
5. Useful links to avoid the scams.

Key points in Self assessment guide and news for December

1. Hundreds of thousands of customers are being contacted about the imaginary tax rebate.
2. People are even being threatened of arrests and imprisonment in these spam messages and phone calls.
3. A lot of different techniques are used by the fraudsters to carry out these scams.
4. HMRC never uses any social media or text messages as a platform to provide tax rebate or receive any online bill payments.
5. Any such messages, calls, texts, emails, you should report it to HMRC directly.
6. Educating yourself and recognizing the signs of scam is the best option to save yourself from these tricks.
7. You may report your financial loss to action fraud unit, via a phone call or by using their online platform.

HMRC has urged customers to beware of frauds and scams that are rapidly growing in recent times. The HMRC in a published article on their website has provided customers with several tips to avoid such scams. According to their data the HMRC has received over 900,000 complaints from the public about suspicious contacts that are claimed to be from HMRC itself. These contacts are not only limited to phone calls, but are being made via text messages and emails as well. Let's have a look at what are the techniques being used by these fraudsters so you can be alerted by recognizing the signs and take necessary action.

How are the scammers contacting the public?

Out of the 900,000 reports received by HMRC, over 100,000 are estimated to be phone scams, whereas over 620,000 were involved with sham tax reports. These fraudsters use some common techniques when they contact the customers, such as:

Phone calls: One of the most common techniques is that scammers will call you on your mobile or landline and ask you to pay bogus bills or offer you tax refunds by paying these bills immediately. The callers on these calls tend to be quite persistent and even threats of arrest or imprisonment in order to intimidate the customers. The cue here is to be suspicious and do not give into these false pretenses.

Social media contact: According to HMRC they never use social media such as Facebook or whatsapp to contact the public. So if you are receiving any such notification on any social networking platforms, claimed to be from HMRC and asking for any personal financial information or offering tax rebates, this could be a fraudster contacting you.

Emails and texts: Customers have even been contacted by emails and text messages which include a link that will take you to their fake website. As per HMRC they will never contact customers using such ways and links for payments, this could be a phishing attack.

Refund companies: There are even some companies that claim to be authorized to apply for a refund on your behalf from HMRC. These companies are not really official and you should take caution before you consider hiring them.

As per HMRC, genuine organizations like HMRC and banks would never ask its customers for their PIN, financial details, passwords etc. If someone is contacting you in any of the above ways and asking for these details you should consider taking the following steps:

Steps to be taken in case of suspicion

• Recognize the signs to avoid such scams.
• Never give out any such information, reply to texts or click on any links provided with these kinds of messages or download any attachments.
• You can make use of a dedicated customer protection team of HMRC. You can forward details of suspicious contact, to phishing@[email protected] and texts to 60599.
• You may Report Fraud to HMRC here.
• Educating yourself for proper self assessment could save you from such scams, you may make use of the Self Assessment Guides provided by HMRC.
• Additionally, you can access iCalculators, self assessment guides here, https://www.icalculator.com/finance/self-assessment/guides.html to ensure the proper knowledge to avoid such scams.

If you have already suffered a financial loss due to these scams you should contact Action Fraud unit at 0300 123 2040 or contact them at their online platform for Fraud and Cyber Crime.