Tax Time Means Fraud Time

The arrival of tax season brings the inevitable scam e-mails and Web sites claiming to be affiliated with the Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury Department, or an online tax refund or preparation service. Here's the latest scam:

Members of Phishtank, a community of volunteers committed to fighting e-mail financial scams, spotted this phishing site offering recipients a tax refund via their MasterCard or Visa account.

The scam page was hosted by a Polish Web site calling itself the Amateur Computer Club. It is highly likely the club's site was hacked and seeded with the scam page. This particular phishing site was shut down this morning. But we can expect to see more of these tax scams, in particular those appealing to folks who are anxious to receive their refund checks from Uncle Sam.

Never provide any financial or personal information at a site that you reached by clicking on a link in an e-mail or instant message. Be extremely judicious about clicking on e-mail and instant message links in general.