Scam warning after more than one million suspicious reports
Tax credits customers have been warned to be alert to scams after more than one million referrals of suspicious contact.
In the 12 months to April 30 this year, HMRC responded to more than 1,154,300 referrals from the public. More than 576,960 of these offered bogus tax rebates.
In the same period, HMRC has worked with telecoms companies and Ofcom to remove more than 3,000 malicious telephone numbers and with internet service providers to take down over 15,700 malicious web pages. HMRC responded to 443,033 reports of phone scams in total, 135 per cent up on the previous year.
Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s director general for customer services, said: “We’re urging all of our customers to be really careful if they are contacted out of the blue by someone asking for money or bank details.
“There are a lot of scams out there where fraudsters are calling, texting or emailing customers claiming to be from HMRC. If you have any doubts, we suggest you don’t reply directly, and contact us yourself straight away. Search gov.uk for our ‘scams checklist’ and to find out ‘how to report tax scams’.”
