Conmen pose as taxman to target 60,000 in six months
SCAM callers posing as tax officials targeted at least 60,000 households in just six months.
About 328 victims a day are reporting the telephone fraudsters, who are threatening homeowners with jail unless they repay fake tax debts, HMRC said.
The figures are a rise of 360 per cent on the previous six months and many more are believed to have been targeted but not alerted the taxman.
The elderly and vulnerable are the main victims of the swindlers who usually phone the 26 million homes with a landline.
Those who are not ex-directory are especially at risk because their details are available online.
The shady scheme is part of a massive increase in bank transfer scams which costs customers £1 million a day. Victims are tricked into making payments into accounts controlled by criminals.
HMRC urged people to stay vigilant and asked them to alert anyone they know with a landline about the scam. It said in the past year it had helped close more than 450 phone lines the fraudsters use to steal money.
The explosion in tax fraud calls followed a clampdown on similar email and text scams, where swindlers sent messages claiming to be from the taxman to trick victims into paying them. Treasury minister Mel Stride said: ‘We have taken major steps to crack down on text and email scams leaving fraudsters no choice but to try and con taxpayers over the phone.
‘If you receive a suspicious call to your landline from someone purporting to be from HMRC which threatens legal action, to put you in jail, or payment using vouchers, hang up and report it to HMRC who can work to take them off the network.’
Pauline Smith, head of the UK’s national fraud and cyber reporting centre Action Fraud, said: ‘Fraudsters will call your landline claiming to be from reputable organisations such as HMRC.
‘Contact like this is designed to convince you to hand over valuable personal details or your money. Don’t assume anyone who calls you is who they say they are. If a person calls and asks you to make a payment, log in to an online account or offers you a deal, be cautious and seek advice.’
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, added: ‘Scammers will use any means possible to cheat people out of their money and we’d urge everyone to be cautious.
‘If there are any niggling doubts it is always sensible to end the call and contact the company or government department separately using a phone number taken from a piece of official correspondence or their website.’
In the first six months of last year, £145 million went missing in bank transfer fraud – almost £1 million a day and 50 per cent more than in the same period of 2017, according to trade body UK Finance. About a quarter of the total losses – £36.6 million – was the result of impersonation fraud. HMRC said it received more than 60,000 reports of phone scams in six months up to January 2019 – a rise of 360 per cent on the six months prior.
It stressed it would only ever call to ask for payment on debts that people are already aware of.
Taxpayers will either have previously received a letter about it or have themselves called HMRC to say they owe some tax.
‘Households with a landline number should be vigilant of phone calls from fraudsters pretending to be the tax authority,’ a spokesman for HMRC said.
‘A rising number of criminals are turning to the traditional method of cold-calling publicly available phone numbers to steal money from taxpayers.’
HMRC said controls introduced in the phone industry have stopped about half a billion scam emails and reduced reported instances of HMRCbranded phone text scams by 90 per cent.
‘Threaten to put you in jail’