The IRS reports evolving and increasingly sophisticated phishing emails can dupe unsuspecting taxpayers into handing over their confidential tax and financial information.
Would-be victims could also get tricked into disclosing their addresses, Social Security, bank account and credit card numbers or passwords, which can lead to tax-related identity theft and fraud.
Ben Castro with Zions Bank explained on KPCW’s Mountain Money what the phishing emails may look like.
He said, “One of the things that they do is, and you may have actually experienced this, is seeing emails or text messages that look like they're legitimate from either the United States Postal Service, FedEx ups and those are actually fake alerts trying to get you to click on that information.”
From there, scammers can try and manipulate people into giving them additional information on packages that are not legitimate.
Castro said when shopping online to be aware of who you are buying from.
“One of the things that we'll see are social media ads for items. And I'll give a very specific example that happened to me,” he said. “I was buying a pair of boots that I thought were on sale for 40% off. Well, it wasn't even a legitimate item.”
He said to avoid social media scams, go to the actual website instead of through a social media page.
The IRS said the best way to know if you are shopping on a legit website is to use web addresses that begin with the letters “https.” The “s” stands for secure communications.
Online shoppers can also look for the padlock icon in the browser’s window.
