Always being on the lookout for potential incoming scams and the like, I came across this one yesterday, an email purporting to be from HMRC to an adhesives company I work for one day a week.
The email invites recipients to open an attached 'report' to view the latest information on their VAT return. My colleague Lisa kindly did a screen dump so I could show you. It's gone a bit fuzzy in uploading, but you'll get the idea.
This was clearly a scam, and fortunately my colleagues are savvy enough to recognise such things.
How?
Look at this screen shot, and you'll spot the following:
– No name or 'Dear name' at the top … always cause for suspicion
– A vague and deliberately confusing reference to what the email is actually about, in the first line
– Dodgy English "Make VAT returns is just one of the online services we can offer …. "
– No branding (HMRC logo) or address details. Some scam emails do include this to make them look authentic, it's just that this one is particularly amateurish
– An attachment, presumably containing some kind of malware (we deleted the email before we found out). HMRC just don't do that. Never!
I've deleted the recipient names from the pic for the purposes of confidentiality, but the email was sent to four or five people in the company (including one who left five years ago) but with a noticeable omission … our Accounts Manager.
If you want to find out more about spotting and dealing with scam emails, click here for advice on this website.
