Residents are being advised to be careful when opening emails appearing to be from HMRC regarding tax credits.
Emails seen by Andover Radio look genuine at first glance however on closer inspection contain some tell tale traits.
The email address used (Lynn.B@hmrctax.co.uk) is not owned by HMRC and in fact was purchased via GoDaddy on the 19th September 2018 and has already been suspended for “spam and abuse.”
https://www.nominet.uk/whois/?query=hmrctax.co.uk#whois-results
The email also contains a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet named “TaxCredit.xls” – something HMRC would not do.
HMRC have an “Examples of HMRC related phishing emails and bogus contact” page on their website that shows what to look for.
The Email
We need to check some details about you r tax credits. We are working to ensure that people get the right amount of tax credits. We think that your payments might be wrong.
Please check your company report and send us all the information we ask for by 24 Sep 2018. If we don’t hear from you by this date we will suspend all or part of your tax credits payments.
In order to complete our check we also need your completed tax credits renewal. You will soon receive your tax credits renewal pack. Please complete this and send it to us as soon as possible, if you do not renew it by 24 Sep 2018, we will stop your tax credits. You can renew online at www.gov.uk/renewtaxcredits .
Its really important that you don’t ignore this letter. What we’re trying to do is to make sure you don’t end up being paid too much tax credits, resulting in a debt which you’ll have to repay later.
Sincerely,
Mrs Lynn Brandon
CCBC/Mcol Correspondence Section
