HMRC is preventing 90 per cent of the most convincing scam text messages from reaching taxpayers.
Fraudsters alleging to be from HMRC are sending text messages to members of the public making false claims, such as suggesting they are due a tax rebate. Messages usually include links to websites to harvest personal information, which can lead to identity fraud and theft.
This type of fraud is particularly concerning because people are nine times more likely to fall for text message scams than other forms of contact because they appear more legitimate.
HMRC has been working with public and private partners to tackle this issue. It has been piloting new technology since April 2017, which identifies fraud texts with ‘tags’ that suggest they are from HMRC and stops them from being delivered.
Since the pilot began, there has been a 90 per cent reduction in customer reports around the spoofing of these HMRC-related tags on SMS and a five-fold reduction in malicious SMS reports. The initiative has helped to reduce reports of these scams from more than 5,000 in March 2017, to fewer than 1,000 in December 2017.
‘HMRC is focused on becoming the most digitally advanced tax authority in the world, and a big part of that relates to keeping our customers safe from online scammers,’ said HMRC’s Director of Customer Services, Angela MacDonald.
‘As email and website scams become less effective, fraudsters are increasingly turning to text messages to con taxpayers. But as these numbers show, we won’t rest until these criminals are out of avenues to exploit,’ she added.
In the past 12 months, HMRC has initiated the removal of 16,000 malicious websites and has introduced technical controls which have stopped customers receiving more than 300 million emails purporting to come from the tax authority.
