Hot on the heels of e mail scams, you may have seen them and received the kind e mail form ‘HMRC’ advising you of a lovely tax repayment, we are now seeing a worrying development with telephone scams.
Clients have received telephone messages asking them to call (on this occasion 0203 289 5586). The call is answered ‘HMRC’. You are immediately asked for your National Insurance number and advised of the amount of tax that you ‘owe’.
At some point during the call (we have not got this far because either we or ‘HMRC’ have terminated the calls) you will be asked for your bank details. WARNING, WARNING!!!! Do NOT under any circumstance provide these details.
Failure to heed this warning will result in the contents of your bank account being emptied HMRC may contact you by telephone pursuing tax arrears, however this will only be after they have sent out written demands for payment.
All HMRC telephone numbers start with the numbers 0300 or 03000. If you are in any doubt contact one of the many HMRC helplines, they will gladly confirm the validity of any calls or arrears of tax.
