DEAR SUN SPOTS: There are so many email phishing scams these days. Here are a couple to warn Sun Spotters about. I got an email this morning, supposedly a Docusign from the IRS. The subject line read, “IRS Tax Authorization Form.pdf” and urged me to open and sign the form. It looked real but I knew it wasn’t. I just care and want folks to know they should delete it. I’m always on the lookout for this kind of thing.
Other phishing emails I get constantly are from Xfinity and Comcast. I have been a customer for many years and never have I had such an outburst of bad emails. Sometimes there are up to 20 in one day. I keep deleting them but it hasn’t let up.
When I called the company, I spoke with someone who I had a lot of trouble understanding because of their accent and they were no help whatsoever. These emails are so frequent and so annoying that I’m looking into changing my internet service. Before I go through the hassle of doing that, I’d like to know if anyone else is having this issue and if they’ve been able to make it stop. — No name, no town
ANSWER: First, the IRS doesn’t initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text messages, or social media to request personal or financial information. This includes requests for PIN numbers, passwords, or similar access information for credit cards, banks or other financial accounts.
According to https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/report-phishing, if you do receive a suspicious email, don’t reply and don’t open any attachments. They can contain malicious code that may infect your computer or mobile phone.
Don’t click on any links. Visit the IRS identity protection page if you clicked on links in a suspicious email or website and entered confidential information.
Send the full email headers or forward the email as-is to phishing@irs.gov. Don’t forward screenshots or scanned images of emails because this removes valuable information. Lastly, delete the original email.
I agree that all the Xfinity phishing and spam emails are a real pain. In an effort to rid yourself of these, compose a new email to: abuse@comcast.net and add “Phishing email” as the header. Copy and paste the full email header into the email and send. You may have to do it a lot at first but hopefully your efforts will pay off.
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