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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Tax Fraud Advice, Straight from the Scammers

Summary: A tax fraudster posting as "Peleus" reported on crime forums that 35 federal refund applications in early 2014 yielded only 2 paid refunds, while 35 state filings produced 15 approvals at roughly $1,600 each. He attributed his later success to routing each bogus refund to a separate Green Dot prepaid debit card and to filing many small refunds rather than a few large ones.

Bottom line: The IRS paid $5.8 billion in fraudulent refunds in 2013 even as it prevented $24.2 billion, and the fraudsters' own posts show the playbook is volume plus prepaid cards - a combination that state tax officials told the Senate had no uniform account numbering to filter on.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Fraud & Scams
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