HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has been tackling bogus websites posing as official HMRC sites which have been redirecting people to premium rate phone numbers.
Fraudsters develop copycat websites that look similar to HMRC’s official site and use them to promote phone numbers to call the taxman that can cost callers up to £3.60 per minute.
HMRC have said the phone numbers advertised on such copycat websites are ‘merely call forwarding services which connect callers to HMRC at a significant price’. Whereas, HMRC’s own 0300 numbers are mostly free or charged at national headline rate.
Criminals will take advantage of the fact that everyone has some involvement with the taxman at some point in their lives, so be sure to go directly to gov.uk to obtain genuine contact numbers which will not be premium rate!