Beware of Fresh Tax Scams!
Scammers are at it again. I just received this email (above) earlier today which leads to a fairly official looking web site here. Be advised that this is not a legitimate email and this is not a legitimate web site.
The site has as its source, cjpowers.com, a web site owned by Christoper Powers of Orlando, FL. It may be that cjpowers.com has been hacked. The home page leads you to this text only: Vantom was here….mashy ya mo7′tar 3ashan mab2ash za3altk …b7ob ya klab e
Alexa reports that cjpowers.com looks like the image to the right (it no longer does). If you look carefully, you’ll see that it says that the site has been hacked by “anger hacker/cyclone hacker/hacker-alajman” surrounded by what looks like Arabic or Turkish (it’s very small, hard to tell). Hmm.
If you follow the URL at the source of the IRS scam site with the root cjpowers.com, you end up at the “IRS web site” as it appears above. You also now get this warning:
Ironically, the form has a privacy policy link back to the actual IRS web site with the following warning:
PLEASE NOTE: Do not respond to unsolicited e-mails that claim to come from the IRS, or any e-mail from an unknown party asking you to submit personal, tax, or financial data. The Internal Revenue Service does not use e-mail to request this type of information. Forward suspicious emails to: phishing@irs.gov.
What does any of it mean? I’m not a computer/internet whiz, so I have no clue who is really pulling the strings. I think what is clear is that it is not affiliated with the IRS. Remember that the IRS will NEVER ask you for your personal details via email or phone if it was not solicited from you originally (the IRS may ask you to verify personal details if you initiate the contact).
If you have any doubts about the validity of communication from IRS, contact the Service directly at www.irs.gov or 1.800.829.1040. If you receive a suspicious email such as the one above, you can forward it to phishing@irs.gov.
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