{"id":58611,"date":"2015-07-01T10:01:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T10:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=c29072ec3346dcf24bdf494075b246d1"},"modified":"2015-07-01T10:01:17","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T10:01:17","slug":"press-release-scam-emails-double-during-tax-credits-renewal-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=58611","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Scam emails double during tax credits renewal period"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>New statistics show that nearly 51,000 phishing emails were reported to HM Revenue and Customs (<abbr title=\"HM Revenue and Customs\">HMRC<\/abbr>) between April and July last year \u2013 double the number for the same period in 2013. <\/p>\n<p>Some of these scam messages claim to be from a \u201cTax Credit Office Agent\u201d offering a tax refund, or include a link to a fake version of the GOV.UK website. People are often asked to provide bank details or other sensitive information such as passwords. Fraudsters then try to take money from their account, or sell their identities to criminals. <\/p>\n<p>Last year, <abbr title=\"HM Revenue and Customs\">HMRC<\/abbr> worked with other agencies to shut down 8,877 of these scam websites \u2013 a 500% increase against 2013\u2019s figures \u2013 and the message to tax credits customers this year is to stay vigilant.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Lodge, Director General of Benefits and Credits, <abbr title=\"HM Revenue and Customs\">HMRC<\/abbr>, said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<abbr title=\"HM Revenue and Customs\">HMRC<\/abbr> will never ask people to disclose personal information by email. We have cracked down on phishing emails and scam websites, but the fraudsters\u2019 methods are constantly changing, so people must remain vigilant. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only way to renew tax credits and report changes online is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/renewtaxcredits\">on GOV.UK<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><abbr title=\"HM Revenue and Customs\">HMRC<\/abbr> has advice on recognising scam emails, and how to report them, on GOV.UK: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/dealing-with-hmrc\/phishing-scams\">https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/dealing-with-hmrc\/phishing-scams<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fraudsters are targeting tax credits claimants with scam emails, fake websites and text messages in the run-up to the 31 July renewals deadline, HMRC warned today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}