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Tax season is here and so are the cyber crooks. IRS plots are circulating, the latest one involving an authentic looking email from the IRS that states that you can get your tax refund on a Visa or a Mastercard. It asks for your credit card number, your social security number, credit card expiration dates, card verification value numbers, amount shown on your tax return, filing status and other personal information that might be helpful to them.

One sample of a phishing email can be found on the IRS web site.

“After the last year’s calculations of your fiscal activity we’ve determined that you’re eligible to receive a tax refund of $78.87. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days to process it. Access the form for your tax refund by clicking here. – Regards, Internal Revenue Service.”

The IRS does not notify taxpayers of refunds, or any other payments that may be due, by email. Rather than click on the link in the message, you should forward the email to phishing@irs.gov, and erase the original from your email account.

IRS plots work one of two ways: con-men send out unsolicited e-mails that appear to come from the IRS and tell recipients that they have refunds coming to them. But first they need to click on e-mail links and provide needed information, which they will use to steal a victims identity.

The second version is an email that claims to be from the IRS Criminal Investigation Division telling the reader that they are under investigation for false tax returns. To learn more about the complaints against them, consumers click on the links which have Trojan horse codes.

These codes take over computer hard drives and let swindlers remotely access the computers and use them to send spam email among other things. If you ever do receive unsolicited emails from the IRS, they urge you to forward them the email.

Mallory Megan works for a debt collection company. She also writes articles on business, finance, the credit industry and collection agencies. Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.