Is this a scam?

thattequilagirl

I got an email in my spam box, from the address revenue@revenue.ie

It looks like the real deal, and says I'm entitled to a €300 tax refund and links to a form where I put in my details.... Spam?

Definite scam

smash

thattequilagirl wrote: »

I got an email in my spam box, from the address revenue@revenue.ie

It looks like the real deal, and says I'm entitled to a €300 tax refund and links to a form where I put in my details.... Spam?

Don't click anything except the delete button... Or the spam button!

clairewithani

Absolutely a scam.

Atlantic Dawn

Yes.

Although it appears from a legitimate email address it's easy to fake this. You will find that if you click on the link it will want bank details and the website it goes to will be nothing at all do to do with Revenue. Hovering the mouse over the link should show the actual address it goes to in your toolbar.

FanadMan

thattequilagirl wrote: »

I got an email in my spam box, from the address revenue@revenue.ie

It looks like the real deal, and says I'm entitled to a €300 tax refund and links to a form where I put in my details.... Spam?

Yup, it's spam - I've had them from Irish and British revenue. If you check the headers you'll notice that it's not from anywhere in Ireland.

tomwaterford

thattequilagirl wrote: »

I got an email in my spam box, from the address revenue@revenue.ie

It looks like the real deal, and says I'm entitled to a €300 tax refund and links to a form where I put in my details.... Spam?

Ring the revenue in the morning??

Just to be sure like

vicwatson

Ah King Abdul from Revenue - always offering me money but usually ten millionnnn dollas

smash

tomwaterford wrote: »

Ring the revenue in the morning??

Just to be sure like

Maybe she owes money to revenue and this is a scam by them so when you phone they go "actually I just checked it out and you owe us €1,500. Sure we'll just take that out of your next pay check"

thattequilagirl

Ugh. Figured. Wishful thinking that you guys would go "yeah, that is definitely legit"

The Backwards Man

inticlaims@revenue.ie is the tax refund address, but I would imagine you have to email them before they email you.

thattequilagirl

The Backwards Man wrote: »

inticlaims@revenue.ie is the tax refund address, but I would imagine you have to email them before they email you.

But... €300...?

The Backwards Man

thattequilagirl wrote: »

But... €300...?

I wouldn't get out of bed for less than three grand.

/missing the boom

marcbrophy

The government of any country would never admit to owing you any back taxes, let alone actively seek you out to inform you of this :P

JoseWasntReady

The revenue getting in touch with you because they owe you money?

Hahaha.

Now, if it was the other way around...

Wheety

As has been mentioned, if you hover your mouse over a link in the email, it will show the real address. Just don't click on the link though.

Half Man Half Biscuit

Go to Revenue website , it advises of the latest scams.

maudgonner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

Change 'Spam Spam Spam Spam' to 'Spam Scam, Spam Scam'


If you think you might be due a refund (e.g. if you only worked part of the year) it's worth requesting a balancing statement from the Revenue and making sure you're claiming all the allowances you're entitled to. Very easy to do on their website.

But they ain't gonna come looking for you to offer you free money by email

Water John

Scam, but in fairness to Revenue, I had a small rebate cheque that I had not cashed, its mislaid, they wrote to me telling me that this cheque was going OOD. They then sent me a replacement.

Academic

Water John wrote: »

Scam, but in fairness to Revenue, I had a small rebate cheque that I had not cashed, its mislaid, they wrote to me telling me that this cheque was going OOD. They then sent me a replacement.

Yes, but they didn't e-mail did they? They wrote, right?

OP it sounds like it might be worse than just a phishing scam: it could be ransomware or other malware.

Do not click on it.

Water John

Yes, I agree the email is a scam. Sorry if I did not make that view clear.

Maximus Alexander

The Revenue are never going to seek you out to give you money.

FanadMan

Half Man Half Biscuit wrote: »

Go to Revenue website , it advises of the latest scams.

http://www.revenue.ie/revsearch/search?q=scam&btnSearch=Find

HensVassal

thattequilagirl wrote: »

I got an email in my spam box, from the address revenue@revenue.ie

It looks like the real deal, and says I'm entitled to a €300 tax refund and links to a form where I put in my details.... Spam?

So it doesn't address you by name, quote your PPS number, have a phone number and a reference number?

What do you think?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

JoseWasntReady wrote: »

The revenue getting in touch with you because they owe you money?

Hahaha.

Now, if it was the other way around...

In fairness to them, they do contact you if you are due a refund, but it's via your online PAYE account.

Karmella

Anytime I've ever gotten a tax refund they've just posted it to me with the cheque attached.

They already have all your details! They don't need to send you an email to find them out.

smash

Karmella wrote: »

Anytime I've ever gotten a tax refund they've just posted it to me with the cheque attached.

They already have all your details! They don't need to send you an email to find them out.

Was this back in the 90's? These days they just do everything electronically. Or at least all my refunds have been electronic.

Karmella

smash wrote: »

Was this back in the 90's? These days they just do everything electronically. Or at least all my refunds have been electronic.

Not that long ago but yeah it was probably before I got set up to receive all communications electronically I don't think I've gotten any refunds since! (Feckers!!!!)

smash

Karmella wrote: »

Not that long ago but yeah it was probably before I got set up to receive all communications electronically I don't think I've gotten any refunds since! (Feckers!!!!)

You might have, sometimes they just do it without notification.

Water John

Cheque from Revenue last week.

BrokenArrows

marcbrophy wrote: »

The government of any country would never admit to owing you any back taxes, let alone actively seek you out to inform you of this :P

Uk automatically sends out refunds

Canis Lupus

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Uk automatically sends out refunds

I'm genuinely curious. It has been 7 odd months since this thread was last posted in. How did you find it and then think it was worth posting in?

bucketybuck

marcbrophy wrote: »

The government of any country would never admit to owing you any back taxes, let alone actively seek you out to inform you of this :P

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

The Revenue are never going to seek you out to give you money.

When I moved from the north to the south years ago, after a short time there was a small problem relating to to my tax status, basically my company hadn't paid tax and the Irish revenue didn't actually believe that I had been working here, with various knock on effects.

As we are all in the common travel area certain details should have been shared between UK and Irish revenues, to link my two profiles in effect. Steps were then taken to make this happen.

One unexpected result of this, of my simply asking the UK revenue to tell the Irish revenue who I was, the Uk revenue reassessed my entire tax situation from when I was last in the UK, and sent me a cheque in Dublin for a refund of taxes that I had no clue whatsoever about being owed.

So some places do actually have their **** together and make sure things are done right. Just not Ireland unfortunately.

Pinch Flat

Chances are it's from revenue alright, the one that's based in a shanty town in Nigeria

maudgonner

Canis Lupus wrote: »

I'm genuinely curious. It has been 7 odd months since this thread was last posted in. How did you find it and then think it was worth posting in?

I'm pretty sure someone else posted in the thread earlier today but deleted their post. BrokenArrows wasn't the one who revived it.

And on topic, there have been reports on the news over the last couple of days that there's a phone scam doing the rounds where people pretend to be Revenue offering you a tax refund.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/scammers-ringing-people-pretending-to-be-from-revenue-1.2901281

SmartinMartin

From the revenue site;

http://www.revenue.ie/en/spotlights/email-scam.html

brianomc

Scammers just don't put the same effort in these days.
I must pay this invoice right away

SmartinMartin

brianomc wrote: »

Scammers just don't put the same effort in these days.
I must pay this invoice right away

Damn those efficient German foremen!

maudgonner

brianomc wrote: »

Scammers just don't put the same effort in these days.
I must pay this invoice right away

Signed 'Von Foreman, Delivery Manager'

What a rebel. He comes from such a long line of foremen that the family adopted the job title as their surname. But not Von. Von never wanted to be a foreman. So he followed his dream and became a Delivery Manager instead.

What a man!

05eaftqbrs9jlh

I think it's hilarious that revenue seem not to own the domain those emails are registered to. I rang them about similar emails and they're definitely fake. How did someone manage to get an address that matches the kind they email from? Why has nobody taken action to whomever the domain is registered to?!

Yourself isit

bucketybuck wrote: »

When I moved from the north to the south years ago, after a short time there was a small problem relating to to my tax status, basically my company hadn't paid tax and the Irish revenue didn't actually believe that I had been working here, with various knock on effects.

As we are all in the common travel area certain details should have been shared between UK and Irish revenues, to link my two profiles in effect. Steps were then taken to make this happen.

One unexpected result of this, of my simply asking the UK revenue to tell the Irish revenue who I was, the Uk revenue reassessed my entire tax situation from when I was last in the UK, and sent me a cheque in Dublin for a refund of taxes that I had no clue whatsoever about being owed.

So some places do actually have their **** together and make sure things are done right. Just not Ireland unfortunately.

Irish revenue will,that too. Actually revenue is one of the government departments that is fairly well run.

Yourself isit

Sydney Bitter Bison wrote: »

I think it's hilarious that revenue seem not to own the domain those emails are registered to. I rang them about similar emails and they're definitely fake. How did someone manage to get an address that matches the kind they email from? Why has nobody taken action to whomever the domain is registered to?!

Its a problem with email spoofing not revenue. There's no checking of addresses in the system.

Moocifer

If Revenue ever email you all the email will tell you is to log on to your Revenue online account. Never anything else.

bucketybuck

Sydney Bitter Bison wrote: »

I think it's hilarious that revenue seem not to own the domain those emails are registered to. I rang them about similar emails and they're definitely fake. How did someone manage to get an address that matches the kind they email from? Why has nobody taken action to whomever the domain is registered to?!

But unless I'm wrong the scammers don't have the domains like revenue.ie or whatever, they just dress their fake domains up to pretend they do. So it looks like the email is from revenue.ie but if you check the actual link itself it brings you to www.gjkgjntttkng.com.

The revenue can't do anything about that.

Nabber

You'll need to pay revenue €150 to realise the monies. Revenue only accept western union payments through their subsidiaries in Nigeria.

Mr. Okangongo is a delight to deal with. 15years working for Irish revenue in Nigeria. He was telling me about how the Chinese and Russian scammers are making it hard for him continue his good work.

4068ac1elhodqr

RTE published a warning on their site just 5hrs ago,
https://www.rte.ie/news/2016/1210/837919-tax-bill-scam/
must be plenty of gullible people out there falling for this stuff:

All these scams remind me of the Fonejacker phone call/video compilations from George Agdgdgwngo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9biM_ZfIdo (may contain rather feisty language).

At 3'40" their is an issue with a pigeon inside someones bank account.
Luckily enough I only pay for all goods and services using live pigeons as a barter exchange,
so don't bother with monies or RFID cards.

mrskinner

Revenue@irish.tax.ie
Got spam email fron Mr. Poole, Revenue Credit Office!

diomed

If you get offered something by e-mail it is a scam.
E-mail is nil cost to them. Free bait. If one in 10,000 bite they are making money.

marcbrophy

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Uk automatically sends out refunds

The UK isn't run by a bunch a morons who used to be school teachers though, so it has that going for it too

r93kaey5p2izun

I've received two texts from "Revenue" (no number) in the past week asking me to log in and claim my refund "using my cellphone". I hope no vulnerable people fall for it.

murpho999

Sydney Bitter Bison wrote: »

I think it's hilarious that revenue seem not to own the domain those emails are registered to. I rang them about similar emails and they're definitely fake. How did someone manage to get an address that matches the kind they email from? Why has nobody taken action to whomever the domain is registered to?!

Most likely the email addesses you see are fake too and they are directed to their own servers.