IRD Tax Refund via email?

Is this a scam or virus? We recieved two identical emails supposdly from IRD saying the amount of our tax refund (dont know if it is correct anyway) and to click on the apply button so it can be transferred in a couple of days. Did not have mine or husbands name or IRD number, so thinking it might be a virus. Anyone else get this?

SCAM!!!

Just been onto IRD website, and they do have a warning about suspicious emails, so prob a scam.

www.consumeraffairs.govt.nz/scam-news/scam-alert-8

Scam!

I got one too - they appear to be genuine, and the web address given in the email looks kosher. If you copy and paste the words of the url, it takes you to the IRD's website, but if you click on the link, it will take you somewhere completely different - no doubt to a website that asks for your bank details so they can 'give' you the refund (but empty your account instead).

Just like I could say, click trustme.yeahright.com and it could take you absolutely anywhere I wanted you to go.

If they are genuine and know how much they owe you, they will also know your name and ird number.

Bunter;365192 wrote: If they are genuine and know how much they owe you, they will also know your name and ird number.

And also how would they know your email address unless you supplied it to the genuine IRD. It's certainly a scam and has been doing the rounds now for a while. Delete it.

and bank a/c number. tkf

No - dont open it. They are phishing scams. I found this article which helps u understand some more about these things. www.mytax.co.nz/2011/11/beware-of-email-tax-refund-scams/
The tips in there should help u identify what is real & what is fake.

what you also can do to see where the mails come from is:

(outlook) click on "message" then "block sender" and there you can see the address of the sender and you are asked if you want to block it or not.
This way i was able to see if it was a genuine email address or not. got many mails with addresses ending in .hk which must be Hongkong or so

IRD don't use e-mails for that kind of thing. And you can check most scams on www.snopes.com but I haven't looked for this one.