People are subject to scams every day and they are becoming increasingly difficult to spot the difference between a scam and a legitimate email so you need to remain vigilant when working online. As a result of this increase in scams and phishing attacks SARS has created a section of the website where they will post updates of any scams they have heard about. Similarly they would like you to tell them about any emails you think are scams or phishing. To report or to get more information on phishing, please send an email to phishing@sars.gov.za or call the Fraud and Anti-Corruption Hotline on 0800 00 2870.
How do you know if a SARS email is a scam or not?
Fraudulent emails are always aimed at enticing unsuspecting taxpayers to part with personal information such as bank account details. Examples include emails that appear to be from returns@sars.co.za, or refunds@sars.co.za indicating that tax payers are eligible to receive TAX refunds. Once taxpayers put their personal information such as banking details into these false forms, the information is then fraudulently extracted by the criminals to clear out your funds.
Members of the public are randomly emailed with false emails made to look as if these emails were sent from SARS so take your time to look through your emails properly and follow these tips below: –
Do not open or respond to emails from unknown sources
- Beware of emails that ask for personal, tax, banking and eFiling details (login credentials, passwords, pins, credit / debit card information, etc.) as SARS will never ask taxpayers for such information in an email.
- SARS will not request banking details through the phone, email or websites.
- Beware of false sms’s.
