BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: The Embassy of the United States of America to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean has alerted the public to an internet scam purporting to come from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that has resurfaced. The internet ‘phishing’ scam targeting taxpayers resurfaced earlier this month when a number of persons received “notification” purportedly from the IRS claiming they were entitled to a refund and all that was needed was for the recipient to give their credit card number and the money would be credited to their account. It is not the practice of the IRS to request this type of information via email. The IRS warns that care should always be taken when disclosing personal information. The IRS has also warned that the scam artists have also started aping government websites such as the IRS or other official government sites, as well as eBay, Paypal, popular banks and Amazon. “People see something (purporting to be) coming from a government agency as more serious and needs more attention,” said Jim Dupree, a spokesman for the IRS in Baltimore. The frauds send an email to individuals posing as an IRS representative informing them that, if they are awaiting a refund, they can check the progress of the refund by clicking on a link contained in the email. This link directs individuals to a website that requests personal information including Social Security Numbers (SSN) and Credit Card information. The website may also attempt to infect your system with malicious code. The IRS has investigated 12 phishing scams from 11 countries since November last year. Last month the IRS received examples of nearly 1,300 fake email correspondence from concerned taxpayers. Taxpayers have been urged to be suspicious of emails that urge them to act quickly or their accounts will be suspended or closed, emails that are generic and don’t address them by name or any emails requesting personal information such as account numbers, Social Security Numbers (SSN), credit card numbers or passwords. If taxpayers have any doubt whether a contact from the IRS is authentic, they should call 1-800-829-1040 or the United States Embassy in Bridgetown at 246-436-4950. Reprinted from Caribbean Net News caribbeannetnews.com