Date: Jun 9, 2010 4:39 PM
Subject: Notice of Underreported Income
Taxpayer ID: 00000143073750US
Tax Type: INCOME TAX
Issue: Unreported/Underreported Income (Fraud Application)
Please review your tax statement on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website (click on the link below):
review tax statement for taxpayer id: 00000143073750US
Internal Revenue Service
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As a business owner, seeing anything with the letters IRS on it causes my heart to flutter just a bit. Add the words "issue" or "Underreported Income" or "Fraud" and suffice it to say I'm not a kid at Christmas.
However, I consider myself to be a pretty internet savvy, intuitive guy- so after getting over the initial shock of the email header I quickly digested the info and recognized some serious tells on this lame Phishing attempt. I'll spare you a run down of my sleuthing skills and instead just remind you to beware of this crap. It's super easy to fact check suspicious stuff like this. For example, I simply copy/pasted the "Taxpayer ID" number into a Google search. I got 57 results like this one.
If this post helps save just one poor hard drive, it has all been worth it.
Happy surfing, everyone. Watch out for sharks.
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