Scam shut down

Inland Revenue has moved quickly to shut down a scam where bank accounts appeared to have been misused to generate fraudulent transactions. Deputy commissioner Mary Craig said IRD had identified a small number of instances where bank accounts had been used to set up what looked like fraudulent direct debits. “We know the identities of those involved, many of whom appear to be linked to each other, and we’ve acted to prevent it from happening again,” she said. “We’re now working with the police and the banks to investigate further, and anyone who has been left out of pocket will be reimbursed. What many people may not realise is that we have the ability to track all movements throughout people’s secure myIR accounts, and there are alerts built in to let us know when anyone is attempting to do anything untoward.” The issue was not related to the automatic tax assessment process that was currently under way.