HMRC scam, be careful

[Lower]

All relevant information will be available on the HMRC web site.
They will never phone you to tell you that you are being investigated because that would defeat the object of their investigation by warning you.
Finally, they will never phone and ay if you don't press such and such a number you will be arrested!
If you get a person voiced call simply ask them for their name and department and tell them you will call them back. They won't give you them if they are scammers, (or they may and insist you have to call the following number xxxxx xxx xxx yeah right!).
If in any doubt hang up the phone, find the genuine number from a tax bill, Google, phone book etc and call them direct. 99.9% certain they will tell you it is a cammer trying to get information.

My wife had one of these calls on Saturday. The caller was quite aggressive and even gave my wife a number to call back on because she said she wanted to speak with me.

coincidentally, she’d had a letter from the tax office a week before telling her that she’d underpaid her tax and they were going to reclaim it through her tax code.

Combined, it was convincing enough that we genuinely thought it was Hmrc until I tried to call them back from their website telephone number and realised it was a Saturday so they were closed. That was the point we realised it was a scam.

 

[mitch66]

I'm simply passing on the info as is, and that many people may not know of the consequences of having a designated office and making certain claims.
HMRC is scrambling around to try and find ways of offsetting the massive covid bill.
Them getting around the 'Private Residence Relief' is one of those that the uninformed may fall foul of!
And raising CGT rates is also being looked at.

What you are doing is misinforming people. You will not be liable for CGT when selling your home because you made a claim for energy costs against a "home office". If you claimed for say a new roof to said area you may be.

 

[dontbelieveawordofit]

Just to warn others...
I received a call from 01332526670 and an automated message said that I had been investigated for fraud by HMRC and if I didn't press 1 I would be arrested.
Googling the number doesn't give any relevant result, so it must be a new one.
Some people might fall for it, so spread the word.

anyone who thinks that pressing 1 will stop the police coming needs arresting.

 

[Vinty]

The Pope is Catholic????

He is a Roman Catholic actually.

 

[Mottie]

What did the Romans do for us? .......

 

[securespark]

...don't be tempted to claim a percentage of basics like energy costs etc!

Did that for 10 years when I went SE back in '96.

 

[conny]

He is a Roman Catholic actually.

Yes, I believe he lives in Rome so that would make him Roman.

 

[bernardgreen]

Yes, I believe he lives in Rome so that would make him Roman.

Nope......The Pope lives in Vatican City which is not Rome but a separate country.

Vatican City is the smallest country in the world. Encircled by a 2-mile border with Italy, Vatican City is an independent city-state that covers just over 100 acres, making it one-eighth the size of New York's Central Park. Vatican City is governed as an absolute monarchy with the pope at its head.

 

[JohnD]

Vatican City has a population density of five popes per square mile.

 

[bernardgreen]

The Pope is a hardworking tax collector, he gets all the VAT he can

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

What really annoys me is that despite logging the phone scams on the UK "WHO CALLED ME" web site where several reports i have logged nothing is done to take down / block such scam attempts, vigorously and constantly,then a load of very worried people can sleep easier

Often the phone calls appear to come from not the actual number, but a spoofed UK phone number, so blocking the as presented number would block a genuine UK subscribers number. Reporting them on such sites, is handy for others to look up the number/scam, but no use at all for blocking them.

 

[bernardgreen]

Some of these calls with a spoofed caller ID are automated "test" calls to see if there is a human there, press any button and the system will know for sure that a ( gullible ) human is there. The system will then log your number as that of a ( gullible ) human being and worthy of a scam call from an (in) human scammer.

If no button is pressed then the system cannot be sure there is a human answering the call and might then avoid calling that number again.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

What did the Romans do for us? .......

Invented tax, which resulted in the HMRC, which then made these scam calls possible!

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Yes, I believe he lives in Rome so that would make him Roman.

He's an Argentinian economic migrant.

 

[JohnD]

He's an Argentinian economic migrant.

Boris comes from the US, of Turkish descent.