Fraudulent emails claiming to be from the CRA have been making the rounds recently. The emails make reference to the person being owed a refund and then ask them to click on a link to access the refund form. The link then redirects the user to a phishing website where the user may be tricked into supplying sensitive information such as your SIN. The information is collected and used for malicious purposes, such as identity fraud.
According to the CRA’s website:
- The CRA will not request personal information of any kind from a taxpayer by email.
- The CRA will not divulge taxpayer information to another person unless formal authorization is provided by the taxpayer.
- The CRA will not leave any personal information on an answering machine.
If you have entered information into one of these sites, or if you have received fraudulent emails claiming to come from the CRA, you should review the following page on the CRA’s site:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ntcs/bwr-eng.html
The site contains information on how to protect yourself from fraudulent communications as well as contact information for if you have responded to a fraudulent communication.