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NetRaising discovers new phishing scam in our morning email.

On May 31st 2007 The Internal Revenue Service issued an updated warning about phony emails that scare people into believing they are under tax investigation. If clicked, a link in the emails may give scammers access to your computer hard drive. An e-mail claiming to be from IRS Criminal Investigation falsely states that the person is under a criminal probe for submitting a false tax return to a Franchise Tax Board. Opening up an attachment, or clicking on a link to download a file to learn more about the complaint allows those behind the scam to gain remote access to PC computers.

The IRS does not send out unsolicited emails or ask for detailed personal and financial information, including PIN numbers, passwords or other credit card and bank information.

If you should received one of these emails, donot open attachments or click on any links. Instead, forward the e-mails to .

Read the IRS Warning Here

NetRaising received one of these phishing emails on June 7th, 2007.

The email text, shown below (with names and original links to attachments removed) is very official looking. The email address it was sent to at our office is one that was only ever used for an account with the a local Business Journal, so it was sent to a targeted list of business owners and subscribers of the publication.

The person listed as registering the complaint, works at another web services provider, one in Hillsboro Oregon, so we believe that the scam emails are using actual names from a local list. Its likely that some poor person got an email like this claiming that we filled a complaint against them.

This is a very sophisticated scam and we hope you’ll help us get the word out about it to help protect others from it.

Example Email

Mr./Mrs. #### ######### (CompanyNameWasHere)

We regret to inform you that your company is currently being investigated by our CI department for criminal tax fraud
due to a complaint that was filled by a Mr. ++++ ++++++ on 05/06/2007

Complaint Case Number: MTE404D5
Complaint made by: Mr ++++ ++++++
Complaint registered against: #### ######### (CompanyNameWasHere)
Date: 05/06/2007

You are being investigated for submiting false income tax returns with the Franchise Tax Board.
Instructions on how to resolve this issue aswell as a copy of the original complaint can be found on the link bellow.

Complaint Documents

Criminal Investigation (CI) serves the American public by investigating potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code
and related financial crimes in a manner that fosters confidence in the tax system and compliance with the law.

(IRS logo was here)Download

Criminal Investigation department resides at:
1111 Constitution Ave NW
Room 2501
Washington, DC 20224

Please note that you are required to review the complaint and fill out the document from the above link and mail it to the CI address.