{"id":1889,"date":"2017-06-08T13:38:59","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T13:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1889"},"modified":"2017-06-08T13:38:59","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T13:38:59","slug":"fraudsters-target-victims-claiming-tax-owed-hmrc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/fraudsters-target-victims-claiming-tax-owed-hmrc\/","title":{"rendered":"Fraudsters target victims claiming tax is owed to HMRC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vulnerable citizens are being wrongly informed that they owe money to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Some of those targeted are even informed that there is a warrant out for their arrest or a case being built against them unless they agree to pay immediately.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Fraudsters are contacting victims through cold calls, voicemails and text messages, warning them of bogus debts, and are requesting payment via iTunes gift cards.<\/p>\n<p>One man, aged 87, told the BBC that he was instructed to purchase a \u00a3500 gift card and reveal the serial numbers on the back of the card in order to settle the bill he owed. Once he had done this a further \u00a31,300 in voucher codes was demanded, at which point he became suspicious.<\/p>\n<p>A HMRC spokesperson said: \u201cWe are aware that some people have received telephone calls from individuals claiming to be from HMRC.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a well-known brand, which criminals abuse to add credibility to their scams.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHMRC will never request tax debts to be paid in payment vouchers and we are clear that they cannot be used to pay tax.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Action Fraud, scammers like using iTunes gift cards to request payment as vouchers can be easily redeemed and sold on.<\/p>\n<p>The organisation has asked for people to be vigilant when discussing the payment of taxes, and issued the following advice on receiving phone calls and text messages:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>HMRC will never use texts to tell you about a tax rebate or penalty or ever ask for payment in this way<\/li>\n<li>Telephone numbers and text messages can be easily imitated. You should never trust the number you see on your telephones display<\/li>\n<li>If you receive a suspicious cold call, end it immediately.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vulnerable citizens are being wrongly informed that they owe money to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Some of those targeted are even informed that there is a warrant out for their arrest or a case being built against them unless they agree to pay immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1890,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions\/1890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}