{"id":1470,"date":"2009-08-05T23:56:35","date_gmt":"2009-08-06T03:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/?p=1470"},"modified":"2009-08-05T23:56:35","modified_gmt":"2009-08-06T03:56:35","slug":"tip-of-the-week-watch-for-identity-theft-scams-spoofing-irs-name-logo-or-web-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/2009\/08\/tip-of-the-week-watch-for-identity-theft-scams-spoofing-irs-name-logo-or-web-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Tip of the Week: Watch for Identity Theft Scams Spoofing IRS Name, Logo, or Web Site"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">Internal Revenue Service (IRS)<\/a> in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/newsroom\/article\/0,,id=211669,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">IR-2009-071<\/a> reminded consumers to be aware of identity theft scams that spoof the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a> name, logo, or Web site. The scammers may use e-mail, fax, or telephone for their schemes. The goal is obtaining\u00a0personal or financial information such name, address, birth date, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers (SSNs),\u00a0PINs, and passwords.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the more common scams revolve around the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Making Work Pay Refund<\/li>\n<li>Inherited Funds\/Lottery Winnings\/Cash Consignment<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/fw8ben.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Form W-8BEN<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Refund Scam<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a> recommends knowing the following warning signs of a scam:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Requests detailed or an unusual amount of personal and\/or financial information, such as name, SSN, bank or credit card account numbers or security-related information, such as mother\u2019s maiden name, either in the e-mail itself or on another site to which a link in the e-mail sends the recipient.<\/li>\n<li>Dangles bait to get the recipient to respond to the e-mail, such as mentioning a tax refund or offering to pay the recipient to participate in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a> survey.<\/li>\n<li>Threatens a consequence for not responding to the e-mail, such as additional taxes or blocking access to the recipient\u2019s funds.<\/li>\n<li>Gets the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a> or other federal agency names wrong.<\/li>\n<li>Uses incorrect grammar or odd phrasing (many of the e-mail scams originate overseas and are written by non-native English speakers).<\/li>\n<li>Uses a really long address in any link contained in the e-mail message or one that does not start with the actual <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a> Web site address (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/<\/a>). To see the actual link address, or url, move the mouse over the link included in the text of the e-mail.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you are suspicious of any item you receive purporting to be from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a>, remember that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a> will never ask for personal or financial information in an e-mail and it does not send unsolicited e-mails. Never click on links or open attachments in such e-mails and contact the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a> at (800) 829-1040 if you receive one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in IR-2009-071 reminded consumers to be aware of identity theft scams that spoof the IRS name, logo, or Web site. The scammers may use e-mail, fax, or telephone for their schemes. The goal is obtaining\u00a0personal or financial information such name, address, birth date, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, social [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[354,321,995,712,624,28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1470"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1474,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions\/1474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}