myGov Tax Refund Phishing Scam

According to this email, which purports to be from Australian government services website myGov, you are eligible to receive a tax refund.

The email instructs you to click a button to access a tax refund eForm. It warns that your refund will not be processed if you do not confirm your identity. The email, which has the subject line “Important information regarding your account”, includes the myGov logo and claims to be from the myGov Team.

However, the email is not from myGov nor does it have any connection to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). And, the claim that you can click the link to get a tax refund is untrue.

Instead, the email is a phishing scam designed to steal your personal and financial information. If you click the button in the email, a fake tax refund claim form will open in your browser.

The form asks for your name and contact details, your myGov password, and your credit card numbers. After you supply this information and click the “Continue” button, you will be automatically redirected to the genuine myGov website.

But now, the scammers can collect the information you supplied on the bogus form and use it to commit credit card fraud and identity theft.

If you receive an email like this one, do not click any links or open any attachments that it contains. On its security information web page, myGov notes :

Do not click on links in emails or text messages claiming to be from myGov. myGov will never send you a text, email or attachment with hyperlinks or web addresses.

Scammers have long used the promise of unexpected tax refunds as a way of tricking people into divulging their personal information or downloading malware. Such scam emails target taxpayers in many different nations.