IRS Warns About Phony Emails

The IRS has issued a press release warning about phony emails claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service. The emails direct the receiver to click on a link that goes to a page asking for personal financial data such as credit card numbers or social security numbers. This practice of confusing victims into giving away private personal and financial information is known as phishing for information. The IRS is warning that they do not ever send out unsolicited emails, and that they never ask people for their PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts. The IRS has created a special email address, phishing@irs.gov, that you can forward fraudulent emails to for further investigation. The email address has been up for about a year and has already received over 17,000 emails.