In its latest move, income tax department is making taxpayers aware about the different scams being practiced and the most recent being the income tax refund related fraud. In this case, fraudsters have been asking taxpayers over mail and SMS, about a person's bank or debit card details in order to process their refund and credit the amount in an individual's account.

And herein where the department comes to picture and reiterates that it does not uses any such means i.e. do not ask for crucial customer details including debit card number or CVV etc. And to make known such scam, IT department is sending a message which says, "Beware of fake messages claiming to be from the I-T Department. We will never ask for your debit card details or CVV number in order to process your refund. Don't share your number with anyone."

The message appears enticing to a taxpayer saying that the income tax refund of the concern has been approved by the dept. and for it to be processed the dept requires the above specified details. And the refund amount is made to be realistic by including decimal number which makes lay-men person fall to such frauds.

And as per a Chartered Accountant with a ChateredClub.com, "This is a scam which has been happening at large. The Income Tax Department has been trying its best to educate the taxpayers that the I-T Department does not ask for debit card details, but only for the bank account details. However, any taxpayer receives such a message from someone, then he should not fall for such messages and should cross-check with his ITR if he was even eligible for this refund. And even if he was eligible, he should not furnish his debit card details".

In such a fraud, despite of the lure for the refund amount, the processing is done in such a way, that the moment you furnish your confidential debit card details, the same amount gets deducted from your bank account.

It is to be further noted in a case when there arises some additional required from the income tax department's side it is always clarified with a justifiable reason by the department.

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