Havering councillor: beware of scam emails

A Havering councillor is warning people to be on their guard after a hoax email asking for people’s bank details has been circulating.

Cllr Frederick Thompson said a friend had received the email and was nearly taken in until she consulted him.

The email has the HM Revenue and Customs logo and is headed ‘tax refund notification.’

The email goes on to say that the person is eligible to a refund, in this case ₤�468.

It adds: “Please submit the tax refund request and click here by having your tax refund to your bank account in due time.

“Please Click ‘Get Started’ to have your tax refund to your bank account, your tax refund will be sent to your bank account in due time take your time to go through the bank we have on our list.”

Cllr Thompson said: “I overheard some people talking on a bus about it and how they and a number of friends had received these phishing scam emails from the tax man as they put it.

“Thus I realised there was a real danger that someone could be taken in as the link in the email takes you to an online form asking for a lot of financial data making pilfering an account easy.”

He is advising people to check any emails with the HMRC office before replying.

“Do not trust emails purporting to offer you a tax refund from HMRC saying you have paid too much tax for a previous year.

“The amounts are plausible but just jam to lure you in. The easiest thing to spot that something is wrong is that they are written in strangely stilted and fractured English.”

If in doubt visit the HMRC website for advice and similar scam emails to be aware of.

These can be found at www.hmrc.gov.uk/security/examples