Are you sure
Once fraudsters were princes from far-away lands, but they’re much more sophisticated now, warns Jane Bradley
The other day, my friend answered a call to her mobile phone and received a nasty shock. “Hello,” said the voice on the other end. “I’m calling from HMRC. There have been indications that you have committed tax fraud between 2012 and 2017. You owe more than £6,000.”
My friend was more than slightly concerned. The fact that the call had come just days after she had submitted her self-assessment tax return to HM Revenue and Customs for this year tipped her towards believing that this nightmare could possibly be true.
When she quickly checked the number which displayed on her phone screen during the call against the legitimate number cited by HMRC on its own website, they matched. When they called her back a few hours later, it again, appeared to be a call from the real HMRC number. The voice continued to tell her that the tax authorities were pressing serious charges against her and had a warrant for her arrest. They had case numbers and ID numbers. They asked her repeatedly if she had been aware of the fraud, or if it had been done without her knowledge.
They told her that she needed to hire a tax lawyer – or pay the full amount immediately. It was then that she became suspicious and hung up.
During the call, she spoke to a number of different people and all were equally plausible and knowledgeable about the situation. As my friend has been predominantly a stay-at-home parent for a while, but has small amounts of money coming in from a variety of different sources, she was concerned that somehow she might have been overlooking a payment she needed to make for