Spanish Tax Agency Warns About Increase in Online Fraud and Impersonation Attempts
The Spanish Tax Agency has once again warned about the growing number of online fraud attempts carried out through emails, SMS messages and telephone calls impersonating the public authority or even some of its senior officials.
According to the Treasury, the purpose of these attacks is to deceive citizens into disclosing personal data, banking information or confidential credentials through communications that falsely appear to be official.
In most cases, cybercriminals rely on alleged tax refunds, non-existent reimbursements or false urgent notifications relating to penalties, seizures, fines, debts or card blocks in order to create psychological pressure and provoke an immediate reaction from the victim.
Identifying Fraud Attempts
The Spanish Tax Agency recalls several key indicators that may help identify this type of fraud:
- It never requests financial, personal or banking information via email or SMS.
- It never asks for bank account or payment card details.
- It never attaches invoices or confidential documents to emails.
- It never issues refunds to credit or debit cards.
- It never charges for its ordinary public services.
For this reason, the Tax Agency recommends not clicking on suspicious links or downloading attachments contained in doubtful communications, even when they appear to have an official appearance.
In addition, citizens are advised to immediately delete unsolicited messages, never respond to this type of communication and exercise extreme caution even where emails apparently originate from known contacts.
Accessing the Electronic Office and Verifying Security Certificates
The Spanish Tax Agency also recommends accessing the Electronic Office exclusively by manually typing the official address into the browser and verifying the authenticity of digital and security certificates.
The Treasury emphasises that many of these fraud attempts are detected thanks to citizen cooperation and encourages individuals to report any impersonation attempts through official channels.
The agency warns that the rise of this type of digital scam has turned each tax campaign into a particularly sensitive period, during which criminals attempt to use taxpayers’ fear as a master key capable of unlocking personal data and bank accounts.
Source: Spanish Tax Agency.