IRS casts a net for 'phishermen'
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Sunday, August 27, 2006
People are intimidated by the Internal Revenue Service even though there are nice people working there.Sue Hales, handles media relations for Illinois and three other states. She wants to help protect you from 21st century con men who use the Internet.
Hales stopped by The Register-Mail to talk about "phishing." No, this is not an outdoors column filled with misspellings.
According to the online encyclopedia Webopedia, phishing is "the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft."
The idea is to trick people into revealing Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, personal identification numbers, bank account numbers, etc.
Even though tax season is over, the number of scams continues to increase. Since November, 104 different scams have been identified - 20 in June alone, the most since 40 in March, smack dab in the middle of the filing season. Many happened in the Galesburg area.
Hales said some con artists download IRS forms and modify them for their own purposes. Some use IRS graphics.
The key to keeping your private information secure? "The IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails asking for personal information," Hales said. "Be extremely careful when providing your personal information."
"They don't care who they hurt," she said. "They don't care if it is a 95-year-old grandmother."
The newest e-mail scam, according to the IRS, uses the Treasury Department's Electronic Federal Tax Payment System as the bait. IRS officials say watch for grammatical errors and typos; many of the scams originate outside the U.S.
Others tempt people by saying they have refunds due them.
Hales says many people respond, but these "phishermen" are not IRS employees.
"We will not ask you for personal information" by e-mail, Hales said. "We're never going to ask for passwords or PINs."
Your bank accounts can be cleaned out, someone can use your credit card for a shopping spree. Identity theft can take years to clear up.
Hales says if you receive one of these e-mails, "Don't click on the links, definitely don't provide any personal information."
If you get a suspicious e-mail, send it to phishing@irs.gov.
There are instructions on the IRS Web site. If someone simply forwards the e-mail, information needed to track the scammers and shut them down is lost.
More than 7,000 bogus e-mails have been forwarded to the IRS.
"And that's just the people who send them to us," Hales said. "Some don't."
For information on preventing or handling the aftermath of identity theft, visit the Federal Trade Commission's (http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/index.html) and OnGuardOnLIne (http://onguardonline.gov/index.html) Web sites. Click on "Topics" to find the identity theft and phishing areas on OnGuardOnLine.
For information on identity theft prevention and victim assistance in relation to tax administration, visit the IRS Identity Theft Web page on the IRS Web site. Enter the term "identity theft" in the search box in the upper right hand corner.
For schemes other than phishing, call (800) 366-4484 to report the fraudulent misuse of the IRS name, logo, forms or other IRS property.
You have friends at the IRS. But they need your help. After reporting the bad guys, relax, put up a "Gone Fishing" sign, and do some fishing of your own - the legal variety.
John R. Pulliam is business editor at The Register-Mail. Contact him at 343-7181, Ext. 215, or jpulliam@register-mail.com.
