How do I know if I was really contacted by HMRC?

In our ever-growing technological world, scam artists are becoming more frequent, and harder to spot. These scammers can pretend to be anyone, but one becoming increasingly more common are those claiming to be from HMRC.

Particularly with the Covid-19 Pandemic, HMRC have seen scams increase by 87% between 2019-20 and 2020-21.

Whilst HMRC are moving to a digital service, they must still follow the law and have numerous legal documents, to support any bills they send you or contact that they make. When confronted with a singular piece of information from HMRC, you have time to verify it before charges would be made or correspondence followed up.

They prey on your fear of litigious proceedings and so it is understandable that victims would try and follow all the steps laid out for them to avoid such action taken against them. They also could be promising tax refunds, that they are dealing with your benefit claim etc, and the prospect may seem too sweet to turn down.

If you ever get one of these calls, emails, or letters, don’t rush, take your time to see that it seems right.

General things to know:

• HMRC will not ask for personal details via email or over the phone. You have to supply them via official forms like a tax return.
• HMRC will not ask you to transfer money. Even when they want you to pay a bill, you will have been supplied with an official invoice to do so, almost without fail, in writing and only following sometime after that would they contact you again to sort matters out, if you have not paid them.
• HMRC will never contact you via email, call or text to let you know about a penalty notice or tax rebate. They both require that you have been sent such details previously by post.

Letters:

Letters can be the hardest to spot, purely because it is how we are used to seeing HMRC correspondence. However, if you are not expecting a letter from HMRC it is always best to err on the side of caution.

The following are things to pay attention to:

• Have they asked for any bank details? HMRC have all your professional bank details from your tax returns etc, if you have chosen to let them know these. They are on their record so they will not ask for these again via a separate letter.
• Are they asking for you to send them money? Check the bank details provided; you can often search these online to check if they are verified HMRC bank accounts. They will also have sent the bill underlying the debt they are asking you to pay, via the post.
• Is there an address provided in the letter header? Again, another quick internet search can prove whether this is a legitimate office of not.

Calls:

Calls and texts are the methods used most frequently by scam artists when targeting their victims, but why would HMRC do this? They are a Government department and have to keep records of what they are doing. How are they going to do this with a call? Be sure to look out for the following:

• Are you able to identify the number you are being called or texted from? Is it one that you know or not? HMRC tend to use 0300 or 03000 for their calls. So, if it is not one of these, if you can see the number, it is worth searching that number to see if others have reported it.
• Were you aware of the claim or payment they are talking about? HMRC will never call you about a matter you have not already been informed on.
• Did they leave a voice message? HMRC will not disclose any details in a voice message left to you, so if they have described the case they are bringing against you, it won’t be HMRC. All they will do is ask you to call back and give you a number to call them on.

Emails:

Another common method for scams, usually involving clicking on a link which will lead you to an unsafe website. Put simply, if you get a link, it almost without fail has not come from HMRC.

• In a similar manner to phone calls or texts, always check the email address from which it was sent. Official HMRC correspondence will come from a .gov.uk address, so look very carefully to check it’s not any variation.
• HMRC follow an email protocol before using this medium at all, so unless you have already been asked to approve this method for your correspondence, it will never be used by HMRC.
• Is it telling you to follow a link? Do not click on any external link that you do not 100% trust. HMRC will only send a link if they want you to supply documents, not purely information, and certainly do not provide a link for general details to be supplied, like your name and address etc.
• Is there an official-looking HMRC header to the email? Be sure to check this is not simply an inserted image. You can do this by going back to your mailbox and looking at the preview of the email. If the email begins with an image URL, this is not a formatted HMRC header, but instead an image taken from the internet and simply pasted into the email.

What do I do if I think I may be receiving illegitimate correspondence?

You can report potential scam activity to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk by providing screenshots or forwarded emails to them to analyse.

What do I do if I am still not sure or think I may have fallen victim to a scam?

If you are still worried, we are able to assist in all aspects of a matter that may exhibit the above concerns, and the legal team at Garrick Law will be able to draft in specialist’s in your professional field if necessary.

At Garrick Law, we would be able to assist in any case, and direct you to the relevant specialist if needs be.

This Guest Blog was written by Forensic Investigations & Taxation Services Ltd (FITS London).

FITS have many years of working in HMRC and the private sector in restructuring, tax and insolvency work, so can offer advice to such clients, to see if they can help them out of that situation, whether that means they either don’t want to liquidate, don’t need to liquidate or can’t liquidate and they need someone to negotiate with HMRC and/or other creditors on their behalf. Click here to view FITS London’s website.