Internal Revenue Service Scam Email
IRS Phishing Scam
Of all the spam I received this morning, I believe the Internal Revenue Service will catch most people out. Don’t click on the link - this IRS email is a scam!
The email appears to have been sent from Internal Revenue Service [no-reply@irs.gov] (which ofcourse it doesn’t) and the subject line reads “Notice of Underreported Income” The IRS email reads:
Taxpayer ID: reports-00000174073547US
Tax Type: INCOME TAX
Issue: Unreported/Underreported Income (Fraud Application)
Please review your tax statement on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website (click on the link below):
review tax statement for taxpayer id: reports-00000174073547US
Internal Revenue Service
It’s so obviously a phishing scam - hoping to glean some of your personal information from you - although it may just catch out some older and non-IT-savvy taxpayers - particularly if they are worried that they may have been caught dodging taxes!
The IRS don’t send emails
As far as I am aware, the only way the internal revenue service will contact you is by phone or telephone and even then that is a rare occurrence. They certainly never send emails out to someone without using the sender’s name and identifying themselves on the email with contact details. Most importantly - the IRS will never ask you to complete a form via email!
If you hover the mouse over the link on the email, you’ll see that the form goes to a website with the European domain name hyu11hep.eu - not an address likely to be used by the Internal Revenue Service! Don’t even follow the link, delete the email immediately!
This is a phishing scam and if you receive a copy of this, or any other similar IRS scam emails, we’d be interested to hear about them. Have a mighty fine day!
12 Responses to “Internal Revenue Service Scam Email”
September 11th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I received one of these today too. You’re right it’s not convincing, especially as I’m a UK citizen, but it’s never nice to see the words “tax” and “underreported” in the same message! 
Fewer people will be scammed by it because of notices like yours put into the public domain. Keep up the good work.
September 15th, 2009 at 4:59 am
I got one today 
Earlier was very tensed to see that mail..
Then searched google and saw this post.
Thanks for the info.
September 15th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Interestingly we are all called LEE. I received 3 emails today, 1 in my junk box mail and 2 in the Inbox and like others it did make me worry ‘what do they know I don’t!’, yep I’m one of the older idiots that don’t know scams from real. But, I didn’t open them, checked the No out on the Internet and hit your page; thank you for posting the info, I can sleep soundly tonight without worry. Lee
September 16th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I received this email today. As an enrolled agent working for a CPA firm, I know that it is a phishing scam, but I know a lot of clients who would click on the link.
September 18th, 2009 at 4:52 am
my parents were checking there email and in it was this scam email unfortunately by the time i figured out that they were looking at something suspicous and went over to check they had clicked on the link (but no personal info was entered) i closed the window right away and disabled the wireless. i need to know what i should do to get rid of any possible viruses that downloaded on to the computer. thanks a lot for any help.
There are lots of good pieces of virus scan products out there, but if you are looking for a free, effective online scan, try Panda at http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/ BM
September 24th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I received this email today BUT to my work email which obviously would not be the first point of contact from any revenue service. It did however panic me a little until I sourced your site. Obviously not genuine!
September 27th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
This is the third email I have received at my office. I called the IRS the first time, but the email address, they advised I forward the email to them. When I attempted to forward it to the irs.gov, the message returned. So now I’m just setting it up to automatically delete this message. Any other suggestions? Just ignore them and don’t worry about it. They haven’t singled you out, they send out to tens of thousands of addresses a minute and don’t know who any of them are. BM
September 28th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
BM - PLEASE - for the sake of ‘older’ and non-tech-savvy patrons - ALWAYS clarify the distinction between a Free Antivirus SCANNER and one that actually “disinfects.” The older and/or non-tech-savvy folks may take your comment on Panda to mean that it will protect & disinfect them - NOT TRUE. Only the “paid” version actually “protects & disinfects;” the ‘free’ version simply ’scans’ and says, “You have this infection” - it does NOTHING to block or clean any infection(s).
Granted, you did say, “…free, effective online [scan]” but still, that is not clear enough - because non-tech-savvy folks are quite likely to assume an AV ’scanner’ = an AV disinfectant. Thanks.
Thanks for claryfying that Jeff. BM
October 1st, 2009 at 12:49 am
I have received over 50 of these emails. I just got 2 in the last 5 minutes…I think this can be traced back to facebook applications.. someone harvested my email address from there and my spam went through the roof… never use a good email address for facebook! You will regret it!!!
November 11th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I saw this mail yesterday in my mailbox, luckly I didn’t trust it and Google’d it
November 18th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I got one today, saying i was owed a tax refund of $550, due to the fact that i know exactly that i’m owed nothing in tax,it became apparent it was a scam once i read it was from IRS, which doesn’t exist here in Australia, lol, if i was a US citizen, maybe if i was working i might have fallen for it but for the fact there was no name or contact, very unprofession letter to say the least, i hope no US citizen will fall for it.
September 14th, 2009 at 11:57 am
My wife got one of these too! And almost got sucked in! Thanks for your post!