Daily Archives: January 21, 2025

• Don’t fall for the IRS scam

  Posted on January 21, 2025 at 03:03 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums
  

  IRS Scam received via text message

  This is a USA centric post, but it can be said for many things that get texted to you.  Lately I’ve seen texts regarding paying toll fees, post office misdelivered items and lately, the IRS – you will get a refund. In the US we have just entered “tax scam season”. From now until April 15th you will see any number of scams being thrown your way. I get even more scams thrown at me as a tax preparer. “I need someone to do my taxes….” and then they ask if I want to receive a link to their last year’s tax documents. It sounds reasonable until you look at the email address and often (and fortunately) they are from overseas domains or email addresses that just don’t look right.

  I hope that everyone seeing that text message will realize that the domain in question is NOT irs.gov but rather tax-popular. I also found it interesting to see that they know I’m on an iphone.

  For the record, if you are indeed eligible for a missed out Economic payment there is no action needed on your part.  This is not a new stimulus payment, rather it’s payments going to those that didn’t receive them based on their 2021 tax return.  If you are on a fixed income and did not file a tax return in 2021 you have until April 15, 2025 to file a return so that the IRS has you in their database. If you do not electronically deposit your IRS refund checks into your bank account, but instead receive checks in the mail, this is also the time to review your postal habits. We have mailboxes out on the street and typically they are not locked. This is the beginning of the time of year that people start driving around checking mailboxes at night to grab refund checks. My advice?  Consider a post office box, a postal service, or if you are geeky like me, a device such as a Ring mailbox sensor or similar electronic alert system.

  Security Patch Lady Posts