Scammers are at it again. I just received another email 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 a 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.
Does this mean that I didn’t win the Nigerian lottery either?
Fraid so, Mary Jo. Those Nigerian scams are a dime a dozen.
But I think I did win the EURO National Lottery… I got a bunch of emails that said so! 😉
Hee hee hee, and I have the BIGGEST you-know-what, which is even MORE impressive ’cause I’m female (or was the last time I checked:)
A couple of months ago I actually did win something, and got an email requesting information so that it could be mailed out to me. I spent a couple of hours checking out to be sure that it was legitimate. Isnt’ it sad how jaded we’ve become?!
Mary Jo – absolutely. I won $25 on Blingo once and was convinced it was a scam… and I entered that one!
And I just won again (not)… In my mailbox tonight:
Attn: Lucky Winner,
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of One Million United
States
Dollars ($1,000.000.00) for the month of JANUARY 2008. The lottery
promotion
which is organized by YAHOO/MSN LOTTERY INC &WINDOWS LIVE is for
email accounts. In view of the above, the winning was attached to your
email
address; hence it is not a ticketed lottery. You are to contact the events
manager with the following.
Batch number: LYM09102UM
Ref. number: NF35447LS
Winning number: 03280988
Kindly send the under-listed data to the payment events manager.
1. Full name
2. Contact Address
3. Age:
4. Telephone Number
5. Fax Number
6. Sex
7. Occupation
8. Nationality
PAYMENT EVENTS MANAGER CONTACT:
Name: TONY ADAMS
Tel: +31 647 205 788
Fax: +31 847 118 577
E-mail: postpaymentbv@gmail.com
Thanks.
Promoter
Clients have been getting these all fall and winter and forwarding them to me; I repeat what you say about IRS not using email, and send them to IRS.gov.