I just got an email allegedly to be coming from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) saying that I am eligible to receive a tax refund for a particular amount.  From the very moment that I got this email, I was already cautious since Travis nor I did not provide the IRS with any of our email addresses.  So how could they reach us in this manner?

This is the email that I got:

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $1212,72.  Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 2-6 days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.

For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access your tax refund, please click here

Best Regards,
Tax Refund Deparment
Internal Revenue Service
© Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved.

If you click on that link, it will lead you to a Phishing site.  It is one of the sites that are designed to look like the real website (a.k.a. web forgeries) to trick you into revealing personal or financial information by imitating sources you may trust like the IRS in this case but I have encountered many incidents with Paypal.

Entering any information on this web page may result in identity theft or other fraud.

The good thing is, I’m glad I’m using Firefox 3 as my default browser because it has built in Phishing and Malware Protection which keeps me safe online. These features will warn you when a page you visit has been reported as a Web Forgery of a legitimate site (sometimes called “phishing” pages) or as an Attack Site designed to harm your computer (otherwise known as malware).

So to all my friends, fellow bloggers, readers and visitors of my blog, I would definitely recommend you update your broswer and start using Firefox 3 before you’ll ran out of unsafe sites that will cause much trouble.