University students targeted by scammers
University students are being targeted by scammers with offers of fake taxrefunds.
Since the end of last month HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has seen the emergence of email scams targeting several UK universities including Cambridge.
The scam emails say HMRC owes the student money and asks them to enter their details on a website to receive the refund.
The revenue body's customer protection team has been receiving reports directly from students receiving the emails at their official university email addresses, and has been working to thwart the scammers.
A spokeswoman for HMRC said:
HMRC issued the following advice:
Genuine organisations like banks and HMRC will never contact you out of the blue to ask for your Pin, password or bank details
Do not give out private information, reply to text messages, download attachments or click on links in emails you were not expecting
Forward suspect emails claiming to be from HMRC to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk and texts to 60599
Check gov.uk for information on how to avoid and report scams and to recognise genuine HMRC contact
If you think you have received an HMRC-related phishing or bogus email or text message, you can check it against examples published on gov.uk
Contact your bank immediately if you believe you have submitted card details to a scammer and report to Action Fraud if you suffer financial loss