Kristi King, wtop.com
As if tax season wasn’t stressful enough, now crooks are posing as tax preparation companies to phish for personal information.
Bogus emails appear to come from legitimate tax prep software companies and may include subject lines such as “QuickBooks Security Notice” or “Your Intuit.com order confirmation.”
Turbo Tax, H&R Block and other tax software companies do send out legitimate emails to apprise users of their tax return status. But H&R Block and Turbo Tax both tell USA TODAY they’ll never ask for personal financial information or sensitive data online. They also won’t ask people to update or confirm passwords or log-in information online.
Some recommendations to keep your information safe on-line:
- Don’t respond to unsolicited emails.
- Don’t respond to emails offering a “software update.”
- Don’t click on links or attachments from sources you don’t know.
- Don’t answer requests for passwords, log-on info or financial information.
Bottom line: Be skeptical.
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(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
