Tax Scam Alert: Fake Refunds

Posted on Feb 19, 2018

It’s that time of year again, where unscrupulous “entrepreneurs” (i.e., scammers) are extremely active trying to defraud the U.S. government and its taxpayers out of billions of dollars of tax money. From phone calls to phishing, scammers will go to any lengths to get at your money.

And now, with the massive Experian data breach, scammers have so much more information to work with. One of the new scams involves the filing of a false return and having the money actually deposited into the taxpayer’s bank account. Because they have the information necessary to track the refund on the IRS Where’s My Refund website, scammers know when the deposit will be made. Soon afterward, the scammer contacts the taxpayer, claiming to be working for the IRS, and demands the return of the erroneous refund. Of course, the scammer provides information for the return transfer, but the information leads to the scammer’s account , not the U.S. Treasury.

This is just one of the methods scammers will use for ill-gotten gains. For more information on this and other current scams, please check out this direct link to the IRS website.

As always, Clark Nuber strongly recommends that tax payers monitor their refunds and, if an amount different than what is anticipated shows up, to immediately contact their tax preparer. Contact a Clark Nuber professional for more information.

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