Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Fraud Alert

The IRS has issued a consumer alert, warning against phishing scams using the IRS logo. Recent scams have been circulating via email as criminals attempt to gain personal information from recipients. For more information on this scam and ways to protect yourself, read more. 

An excerpt from www.irs.gov: 

To protect against potential identity thieves, take the following steps:

• Be skeptical of communications you receive from sources you are not expecting. Verify the authenticity of phone calls, standard mail, faxes or e-mails of questionable origin before responding.
• Do not reveal secret passwords, PINs or other security-based data to third parties; genuine organizations or institutions do not need your secret data for ordinary business transactions.
• Do not click on links contained in possibly questionable e-mails; instead, go directly to the site already know to be genuine. For example, the only address for the IRS Web site is www.irs.gov — any other variations on this will not lead to the legitimate IRS Web site.
• Do not open attachments to e-mails of possibly questionable origin, since they may contain viruses that will infect your computer.
• Shred paper documents containing private financial information before discarding.