HMRC is claiming it has stopped thousands of taxpayers from receiving scam text messages, with 90% of the most convincing texts now halted before they reach individuals’ phones, as it seeks to raise awareness of the tell-tale signs of fraud ahead of the self assessment deadline
The tax authority says fraudsters alleging to be from HMRC send text messages to unsuspecting members of the public. In these messages they will make false claims, such as suggesting someone is due a tax rebate. Messages will usually include links to websites which harvest personal information or spread malware. This can in turn lead to identity fraud and the theft of people’s personal savings.
HMRC says it will never contact customers who are due a tax refund by text message or by email.
However, reports of this type of fraud have quickly increased in volume over the last few years. People are nine times more likely to fall for text message scams than other forms like email because they can appear more legitimate, with many texts displaying ‘HMRC’ as the sender rather than a phone number.
HMRC, working with public and private partners, began a pilot in April 2017 to combat these messages. The new technology identifies fraud texts with ‘tags’ that suggest it is from HMRC and stops them from being delivered.
Since the pilot began, there has been a 90% reduction in customer reports around the spoofing of these specific HMRC-related tags on SMS and a five-fold reduction in malicious SMS reports. The initiative has helped reduce reports of these scams from over 5,000 in March 2017, before the new programme was introduced, to less than 1,000 in December 2017.
As part of its push against fraud, in the last 12 months HMRC has initiated the removal of 16,000 malicious websites, meaning even if the texts are delivered the associated phishing website is likely to have been removed. By introducing technical controls, HMRC has also stopped customers receiving over 300m emails purporting to come from the tax authority.
Angela MacDonald, HMRC’s director of customer services, said: ‘As email and website scams become less effective, fraudsters are increasingly turning to text messages to con taxpayers. But as these numbers show, we won’t rest until these criminals are out of avenues to exploit.
‘We have made significant progress is cutting down these types of crime, but one of the most effective ways to tackle it is still to help the public spot the tell-tale signs of fraud.’
HMRC’s announcement was made during ‘take five to stop fraud week ‘, which forms part of a national campaign from Financial Fraud Action UK and the UK government, backed by the banking industry coming together to tackle fraud.
Details of ‘take five to stop fraud week’ are here.
Report by Pat Sweet
