University students have been attacked with fake tax refund emails in the last month.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of students have been targeted in a bid to steal their banking and personal details. The fraudsters are using ‘. ac.uk’ email addresses that look genuine in order to avoid detection.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said email, text or voicemails would never be used in real refunds.
The financial secretary to the Treasury, Mel Stride said “Although HMRC is cracking down hard on internet scams, criminals will stop at nothing to steal personal information.
“I’d encourage all students to become phishing-aware – it could save you a lot of money,”
The tax authority said it was the first time they had seen a tax-scam attacked directly to students in such high volumes. Like other tax scams, fraudsters send messages with complete HMRC, Gov.uk or credit card branding to tell recipients about the tax fund. The recipient’s name and email address may be included several times within the email. If tricked, the recipient will click on the link which they have to enter their banking details and personal details.
Thousands of students have been reported cases at certain universities in the past three or four weeks. HMRC have been contacting universities to raise awareness of the dangers. The universities contacted were Aberdeen, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Imperial College London, King’s College London, Manchester Metropolitan, Newcastle, Nottingham, Plymouth, Queen Mary (London), Queen’s (Belfast), Southampton, Sussex, University College London, and Warwick.
There is not a number for how many students have been scammed or how much they have lost.
