Tax Scams – how to protect yourself

Tax scams are rife as tax time rolls. From July onwards, the tax scammers try to extract money from you. Often, tax scammers will pretend to be from the Australian Tax Office (ATO).

They use a variety of emotional and socially engineered appeals. You lied about income, made fraudulent claims; owe money; or that the ATO owes you money; and you must update your details to receive it.

Scammers have turned to social media accounts to impersonate the ATO. Don’t trust networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more. Most of these aim to trick users into thinking these accounts are legitimate.

The ATO states

We are seeing an increase in fake social media accounts impersonating the ATO, our employees and senior executive staff across Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and other platforms. These fake accounts ask users that interact with the ATO to send them a direct message so they can help with their enquiry. The people behind these fake accounts are trying to steal your personal information, including phone numbers, email addresses and bank account information.

Scam social media accounts will post fraudulent links hoping you will follow them so they can steal your information. They build a legitimate-looking website purporting to be from a real organisation and request personal information.

They might also phone, SMS or email you, trying to steal your personal information like phone numbers, email addresses, and bank account information.

Other methods can be text messages pretending to be from the ATO, with a message saying that you are owed a tax repayment, asking you to follow a link and complete a form that’s designed to harvest your details.

Yet another way might be an email claiming to be from the ATO saying your tax lodgement has been received but needs extra information, with a link pointing to a form made to steal your information.

The best way to be safe from these scams is to be sure messages are legitimate.

If it seems suspicious, it most likely is. Never click a link or download a file asking for personal information without being sure of who it’s from. The ATO will never send you an email or text message with a link asking you to log in or provide details.
ATO

How to spot these scams

Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes are common in scam messages. Regardless you should still be careful of suspicious links and files, even if the message contains no errors.

Any emails you do receive from the ATO will end in a .gov.au domain.

The ATO’s only official social media accounts are on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which are verified and have a large amount of followers. If the account is recently created or only has a few posts, it’s not a legitimate account.

If you’re unsure about a tax message or post, you can call the ATO on 1800 008 540 to confirm.

It’s more important than ever to stay safe online and be active in protecting your personal information.

Other protection

Trend Micro Device Security Ultimate can help keep you protected from scams this tax season:

Be warned of websites and links that are potentially dangerous before clicking on them
Shop and bank online safely via an isolated browser that prevents unsecure connections
Run a scan on your social accounts to alert you of any privacy risks
Scans for fraudulent emails and warns you if it detects something suspicious