Tax return: the fake tax refund email scam is back

Beware of false joys, which can quickly turn into unpleasant surprises.

As the 2023 tax return campaign kicks off on April 13, scammers are taking advantage of this news to highlight the scam of fake tax refund emails.

It was the magazine

who alerted this week to this subject, stressing that these scams had "

”.

UFC-Que Choisir had already called in November 2021 to beware of this type of scam, which the media regularly echo.

Its principle is quite basic.

The victim receives an e-mail impersonating the DGFiP, telling him that he is entitled to a tax refund of up to several hundred euros.

To benefit from it, he is asked to click on a link to access a supposed “reimbursement form”.

Once on this page, imitating the official site impots.gouv.fr, the Internet user is invited to fill in his identity, but especially his bank details.

Here we are faced with a classic phishing (or phishing) scam.

A technique in which the fraudster pretends to be a trusted organization to encourage the victim to communicate his personal data.

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clues to identify

If you pay attention, this scam is easily identifiable.

Several clues can put you in the ear.

For example, the sender's e-mail address, which may be silly and look nothing like a tax address.

Or the URL of the reimbursement page, which is far from the usual impots.gouv.fr.

But also the risky syntax or links present on the site which turn out not to be clickable.

And even before that, it should be kept in mind that the DGFiP, like all official bodies (CAF, Social Security, etc.), “never

”, reminds

.

The magazine encourages Internet users who receive this type of email to report these suspicious messages on the Signal Spam or Pharos platforms.