Saturday, July 16, 2011

A PATRON ASKED ME TO LOOK AT AN E-MAIL SHE RECEIVED. AT FIRST GLANCE, IT LOOKED LIKE AN E-MAIL FROM THE IRS. THE SCREEN SAID IT DETECTED A VIRUS IN THE ATTACHMENT. SHE HAD NOT OPENED IT YET AND ASKED ME IF SHE SHOULD OPEN IT. WE NOTICED THAT THE SAME E-MAIL HAD BEEN SENT TO A LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE... THEIR E-MAIL ADDRESSES WERE VISABLE. THEN WE NOTICED THERE WERE A FEW TYPOS. THE LOGO LOOKED VALID AND SHE WAS EXPECTING AN E-MAIL FROM THE IRS. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
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9 comments:

  1. NaliniJuly 18, 2011 at 7:35 PM

    Better safe than sorry: I would advise the patron not open it. And instead, place this email sender in the spam box. If the patron is curious, I'd advise them to contact the IRS directly and find out the facts.

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  2. KristiJuly 18, 2011 at 8:44 PM

    I would also advice the patron not to open it and to contact the IRS. When they talked to the IRS I would suggest that the paatron give them as much information about the e-mail as she could.

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  3. JaniceJuly 19, 2011 at 12:52 PM

    I would definitely tell them NOT TO OPEN the email and to delete immediately. I would suggest also to contact IRS as to let them know that this is going on.

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  4. AmieJuly 19, 2011 at 1:23 PM

    definitely not open it.

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  5. TaniaJuly 19, 2011 at 3:34 PM

    I agree!! Don't open it! Rule of thumb, never contact the IRS unless you know they owe you gobbs of money!! To safeguard her email, there are security tests she can run in order to protect her against more email "threats". A testing website that will detect viruses for free is GFI Email Security testing zone www.gfi.com/emailsecuritytest/

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  6. LindaJuly 19, 2011 at 4:41 PM

    tell her not to open it

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  7. Karen HJuly 20, 2011 at 6:00 PM

    I would also tell the patron not to open the email.

    If you go to IRS.gov and click on Contact the IRS you will find a link regarding suspicious emails supposely coming from the IRS.

    Also, of interest I found the following link
    http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=227226,00.html
    It will take you to a news release from the IRS dated June 14, 2011 about how you can get information about the IRS using twitter, YouTube, facebook and other social medias.

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  8. michelleJuly 21, 2011 at 2:27 PM

    I actually got an e-mail from my son who is a CPA and auditor about this about a month ago and of course his advice was don't open it.

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  9. AngelinaJuly 22, 2011 at 3:49 PM

    Of course you don't open it!! It has to many red flags:
    1- The program is telling you a virus was detected.
    2.- The e-mail has been sent to a lot of other people and ther e-mails were visible.
    3.- A few typos.
    I think Karen's idea is very useful.IRS has a list of Tax scams.

    ReplyDelete

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