In recent days, several reports have emerged suggesting that bogus phone calls from fraudsters posing as HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) officials are growing increasingly common across the UK.<\/p>\n
According to reports, scammers are cold-calling taxpayers and demanding immediate payments of several hundred pounds in order to settle bogus tax debts.<\/p>\n
In some instances, victims are being threatened with Court action or a visit from the bailiffs if they fail to comply with the aggressive demands.<\/p>\n
Last year, Police crime watchdog Action Fraud reported that these scams were growing increasingly common across the UK.<\/p>\n
Since then, HMRC has reported that it has been successful in preventing a number of HMRC scam text messages from making their way to taxpayers\u2019 mobile phones \u2013 but reports in numerous regional newspapers suggest that \u2018cold-calling\u2019 scams are still at large.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Avon and Somerset Constabulary issued a warning over the bogus phone calls after an unnamed pensioner in the area purchased a number of iTunes gift vouchers worth hundreds of pounds after being pressured by a cold-caller purporting to be from HMRC.<\/p>\n
Fraudsters had asked the gentleman to pass on these vouchers to a bogus HMRC representative, but fortunately, the unnamed man phoned the police first amid concerns that the scheme looked shady.<\/p>\n
Similar reports have emerged of victims who have lost money to these scams in The Sun<\/em>, The Telegraph,<\/em> The Yorkshire Post<\/em>, The Bristol Post<\/em> and more in the past few weeks.<\/p>\n