Tax season has arrived and so have the cyber crooks. IRS scams are circulating, the latest one involving an official looking email from the IRS that states that you can get your tax refund on a Visa or a Mastercard. It asks for your credit card number, your social security number, credit card expiration dates, card verification value numbers, amount shown on your tax return, filing status and other personal information.

A sample phishing email can be found on the IRS web site.

"After the last year's calculations of your fiscal activity we've figured out that you are now eligible to receive a tax refund of $78.87. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days so we can process it. Access the form for your tax refund by clicking here. – Regards, Internal Revenue Service."

The IRS does not let taxpayers know about refunds, or any other payments that might be due, through email. Rather than click on the link in the message, you should forward the email to phishing@irs.gov, and delete the original from your email account.

IRS scams can work one of two ways: identity thieves mail unsolicited e-mails that look like they come from the IRS and tell recipients that they have refunds coming. But first they need to click on e-mail links and provide needed information, which they will use to steal a victims identity.

The second version is an email that pretends to be from the IRS Criminal Investigation Division telling the person that they are under investigation for false tax returns. To learn more about the complaints against them, consumers click on the links which contain Trojan horse codes.

These codes take over computer hard drives and allow con-men to remotely access the computers and use them to send spam email among other things. If you ever do receive unsolicited emails from the IRS, they urge you to forward them the email.

Mallory McGuinness works for a debt collection company. She also composes articles on business and finance, consumer spending and collection agencies. Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory