Fraudulent e-mails dupe IT payees

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: People continue to receive fraudulent e-mails promising Income Tax refunds.



The Income Tax Department had warned tax payers about the e-mails in October last. But, e-mails continue to be received by people with altered wordings. Apparently, the authorities have not been able to trace those behind the fraud who seem to be operating from outside the country. They appear to be using servers in the U.S. and the U.K. and U.K. domains.



The attempt is often to extract the credit card or bank details of recipients who are asked to open an attached file.



The file masquerades as a PDF, and on opening, connects to a web site of a U.K.-based company. The Income Tax Department had clarified that it did not send e-mails regarding refunds and did not seek information regarding credit cards of tax payers, and had warned tax payers against responding to such e-mails. If the earlier e-mails were configured to be from the domain account.net, they now fake the �from address in such a way that they might appear to be from the official domain of the Income Tax department , but for a spelling mistake in one of the entries. The latest e-mail said: �Dear applicant, �After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 1,80,000 Rupees.



�Bank account holders at the Bank of India, will receive the money within 12 hours after filling the form. To Access your tax refund please complete the form attached to this email.�



Those supplying the information risk losing their money in their bank/credit card accounts.