The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is warning of another Internet identity theft scam targeting Canadian taxpayers. It’s actually a new round of scam e-mails on an old theme, first reported by the CRA last summer.
E-mail messages claiming to be from the CRA are being sent to Canadians, saying that the recipients have a refund coming to them from the federal income tax agency — but they must first bring their account information up-to-date. The letter asks them to download a form from a linked Web site, fill it out and e-mail or fax it back.
The form, titled ‘T2’ is not an official CRA form, although the CRA does have an official ‘T2’ that looks very different. The bogus ‘T2’ asks for a variety of personal information including bank account and passport numbers.
Any unsolicited e-mail you may receive claiming to be from the CRA is a scam. As the CRA Web site advises, the Agency does not correspond with taxpayers via e-mail:
“The CRA advises individuals who receive the unsolicited e-mails to delete them immediately. Do not go to the Web sites listed in the messages as some of these sites contain harmful software.â€