HRMC Tax notice

[Owl Lady]

Today I have received 2 e-mails in my spam box supposedly from HMRC headed" Tax notice". When Googling HMRC it does say they are contacting, re unpaid tax bills and if no response after 4 contacts, can claim money from your bank account. Not sure if I have understood this correctly. Does anyone know? ( as far as I know I don't owe anything, nor have had any correspondence from the tax office!)Have deleted the e-mails, unopened.


oops please delete,

[Kavenkoy]

I have never heard of them emailing you for money owed,that's normally the scam from Nigeria wanting your bank details to pay it in .

In fact I know they don't as I file on line and never other than a receipt have had any demands or correspondence .

Quick test is reply to email if you don't want to delete,and their will be a hidden normal email address .

Delete that's what that buttons for lol.

Kav

[Marions]

And to whom were they addressed, and what logo did they carry.

It is always good to check with SNOPES to see if this is a hoax. They are pretty good at advising. But I an inclined to agree with others that one is NEVER contacted this way. Does it ask you for any details? And how could they take the money if they do't have your details , or any authority to do so form you?

Scarey stuff though.

[paddywack]

This has come up time and again, government and finacial institutions will not contact you by e-mail asking for details,delete straight away, it is phishing.

[journey1]

I agree this is phising, and it is regularly seen headed as Tax. Delete and block and check your spam settings.

[stellasstar1]

lf you are not 100% sure about this, then log on to your tax account details and it will show if you owe any money.

[judyvin]

Definitely a hoax! I have had 2 purportedly from HMRC but saying they owed me money and I need to log in to claim the refund that I am due. Needless to say I didn't and just deleted them because I knew it to be a phishing email.

[Owl Lady]

As I have already said, I don't know details as I deleted them without opening them. I also said I Googled and there, it mentioned about checking tax evaders and contacting them, and after 4 contacts,if no response, they are entitled to claim money from back account etc.

[Maisiemoo]

HMRC can take money from your bank account, but back in the day I worked for IR Collections we had to obtain a garnishee through the County Courts to do so. I strongly suspect this practice will not have changed as they will need to keep everything above board. through
HMRC would not make initial an email, how they be sure they had the right person in the first place?
Owl Lady, you did the right thing but you might like to look at
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/security/reporting.htm

[erol]

HMRC can take money from your bank account, but back in the day I worked for IR Collections we had to obtain a garnishee through the County Courts to do so. I strongly suspect this practice will not have changed as they will need to keep everything above board.

New (proposed) rules apparently

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27308811

[Owl Lady]

Thank you everyone for your replies.
Erol, that is the one I read. In view of that, maybe more will get the same e-mail!! Incidentally it did go into my spam box.

[annanirvanna]

I concur with the other posts above - HMRC have advised me they NEVER contact via e-mail. Def. a scam to access your data - so do not reply and block asap.

[Maisiemoo]

Thanks Erol I hadn't seen that.

[Chillin']

I too have had these emails ... and it is a scam. Mine had a zipped email attached for me to open which my virus checker reported as;

"The attached message from HMRC Revenue&Customs <no_reply@hmrc.gov.uk>
was found to contain the virus "Suspect.DoubleExtension-zippwd-15".
The infected portion of the message was removed by Virus Blocker."

Also if you read the mail it was not really personalised with either your NI number or UTR (mine wasn't anyway) which is a bit of a giveaway that it is phising

[Dalartokat]

Following on from Erol's post, Moneybox Live BBC Radio 4 this morning is about the subject of HMRC accessing peoples Bank accounts. It's the one titled Complaining on Twitter.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moneybox