Tax rebate - or not! UPDATE with scam images.

[saundra]

I'm dealing with my council tax and the number I have to ring is nearly identical to the one in your letter very cleverly designed?

[miasmum]

Like Jo, my tax rebate was either a cheque payable to me or straight into my bank account.

Glad you sorted it. The letter is a good copy but hopefully the payable to solicitors will ring alarm bells to most people

[Workingman]

Oh yes, Saundra.

There are bots out there harvesting names and email addresses from sites where you might have to provide that info to read an article, download something or even make a one-off purchase.

They then sell them on to such as Capricorn who try to get you to divulge your bank details etc.. Once done they then sell them on to the real culprits, and that's the clever bit, getting an identity is not illegal nor is passing it on, it's the third party, overseas, that do the illegal bit.

This new third party, often overseas, is the one that cleans you out - job done.

It is a complex system and obviously lucrative, and as I have found out, very hard to combat given our absolutely useless reporting systems. It takes hours, days, for us to flag things up, but the scammers can act in seconds. They have the upper hand.

I am lucky in being a cynic with these things, but thousands will fall for them.

Shell, AIA was closed down as part of the rolling programme of new companies the scammers use by apparently 'buying' their files. Action Fraud confirmed this.

[TheOstrich]

As Ally said, flippin 'eck.

That is one very plausible well-designed letter.

Well done for following it through with HMR&C and Action Fraud.

Just wondering - did they get your National Insurance number correct on the scam letter, or have you redacted it?

[Suff]

Hi Frank,

I think that most people would fall for it. It is simply too well done with the social engineering. Especially the forcing statements. Most people don't realise that this is the biggest clue to the scam. The more someone tries to push you to do something you know is wrong, the more you should dig your heels in and fight back.

There are some pointers here.

1. HMRC knows your address. They were supposed to have sent you a letter. If they were to give your money to a solicitor, that solicitor would know your address.
2. HMRC will either send you a cheque or ask you for your bank details. I do a company return with HMRC every year. They always ask for bank details for any tax overpayment to be paid back. If you are not connected to HMRC online, logged in with your government gateway id, or actually sending a letter to their offices at the official address, then you don't pass over any info. Especially banking.
3. If you receive a mail like this from a company you can check them out. If they really are a company you can find them at companies house.

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... y/11036321

You can even look at their filing history

If you know a bit about company filing you can detect a scam pretty easily. This is a One woman band. Single director company with "assets" but very little income. It uses directors loans for tax avoidance and looks pretty shoddy.

If you look on the web, the Capricorn Legal website says it provides services to other companies.

Any company working as in intermediary for the HMRC would be large, well founded and provide audited accounts. Over £650k every year.

I doubt very much that your payments of any kind will be redirected. You would notice in a second, contact the sender and the money would be traced. Stealing details may not be illegal. Redirecting funds most certainly is.

Sorry to hear you got so stressed about this and hope I didn't make things harder with my usual abrasive ways. If anything I gave is of use, please file it and remember it.

My concern is more that someone, somewhere, has intelligence from within HMRC. They targeted you because you were on a list of rebates. Someone had access to that list and to your address.

You did the right things with the registered letter and notifying the police. Well done for not falling for it. My son follows up on these scammers, tries to get more info out of them and for them to incriminate themselves before he reveals that he is a police officer.

I doubt you wanted to go to those lengths.

[cromwell]

Blimey Frank, well done for spotting that one!

I can't believe that identity theft isn't a crime on it's own.

[Workingman]

Thanks Suff, I did most of those things and I appreciate your confirmation. Thank you. I didn't fall for scam but many will.

Ossie, I redacted their partial NI number, it was mainly asterisks anyway. I have no idea if they have the whole number, but the leading and ending letters are correct so they probably do..

What really pi55es me off is trying to report these scams. The government goes large on prevention saying they will help us, but when us individuals try to do so we are blocked at every turn. HMRC is the pits. The reporting systems are useless - chat bots, script readers, sub-continent call centres. Honestly!.

[JoM]

That’s a very convincing one Frank, a lot will fall for that.

I must admit alarm bells rang for me which is why I posted about John’s and Joe’s experiences of getting rebates repaid, but seeing that letter it all looks legit doesn’t it.

[Suff]

On the surface it looks that way. But thinking a little deeper this is a pretty complicated scam.

HMRC doesn't stamp envelopes. It sends with codes which bill their account. So did the envelope come with a stamp on or pre paid postage? That is trackable.

Also most of these are online for a good reason. It costs virtually nothing to scam you with email. But post costs and it is not cheap in volume. Which means it is using intelligence of the actual situation within HMRC. Otherwise they could spend millions in postage and get virtually zero responses.

So unless it was actually hand posted, then there is a traceable cost. Even if it was hand posted, there is a cost in envelopes as well as printed letters. If it was hand posted, then someone with knowledge of rebates, the geographic area and the addresses and email addresses of those who are due rebates perpetrated this scam. That speaks to a very wide breach of data.

There is more to this than meets the eye. The police and HMRC should be investigating this very thoroughly.

[Suff]

Looking a bit closer. was the NI number correct?

Also the tax code looks dodgy. I assume it is not your actual tax code??

Things to look for.