Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Fishing with the EFTPS

Back in July, I posted about a new e-mail scam that had been circulating to get taxpayers personal data. Well, the crooks seem to be at it again according to the IRS, and this time the “fish hook” is the EFTPS (Electronic Federal Tax Payment System). Now before everyone jumps to conclusions and says “See another reason to not use technology”, let me outline the details of the scam.


The scam claims to be from the IRS and states that it comes from the Anti-Fraud Commission (and many of the words are misspelled). The e-mail goes on to say that someone has used the taxpayer’s credit card information to pay a tax liability. The e-mail continues and says that taxpayer’s bank accounts have been used for fraud and money has been lost. To help recover the funds, taxpayers must click on a link within the e-mail to start the recovery process.

How to spot scam IRS e-mails

1. Misspelled words

2. E-mail does not end with IRS.gov

3. Link does not end with IRS.gov

4. IRS does not send e-mails to taxpayers

Hope the following tips will keep taxpayers safe when surfing the internet and checking their e-mails

The Tech Accountant

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