Posing As Thai Inland Revenue Scam.

[jkinbkk]

This might be an old one, but we had never heard of it and almost became victims last week.

I received a call on my hand phone via some automated service in Thai. I thought at first it was AIS whining about a bill that was overdue or something.

Any how I passed the phone directly to my wife who listen for 30 seconds or so then pressed one of the keys on the hand phone and after a few seconds more started chatting to a woman at the other end.

It transpires that my wife was asked by this woman (who claimed to be from the Inland Revenue) if we had banked the income tax rebate cheque that was sent to our address some months before?

My wife obviously said she knew nothing about this and proceeded to enquire further about the rebate? The woman stated that a cheque was sent for THB12,000 to me and as we had not received or cashed the cheque the only other possible way was for the Inland Revenue office to transfer this rebate value to my account via ATM transfer NOW.

This had to be done immediately otherwise the deadline would pass and any rebates not cashed/claimed would be made null and void.

My wife agreed to give my bank account name and number and was passed to another department (supposedly) to process this transfer. Another woman took over the conversation and asked for confirmation of my account name, number and branch location. She asked my wife to check my bank account in 30 minutes, she would then call back to check if the funds from the Inland Revenue had been received into my account?

My wife check my account after 30 minutes and nothing had arrived!

My phone rang again shortly after the 30 minute period and it was the woman from the Inland Revenue asking if the funds had been received? My wife said no, at which point the woman on the other end asked for my pin number and security code number?

She stated that having this details would guarantee for sure a successful transfer of the THB 12,000 before the deadline expired.

At this point my wife became suspicious and told the woman the account name, number and branch are sufficient to transfer funds and she was not prepared to divulge further secure details.(she's a smart cookie my wife!)

The woman on the other end said 'ok' and stated that the transfer is probably slow because may people were having the same refund via the ATM transfer that day and that the funds would definitely arrive within the next 90 minutes into my account.

The woman said she would call back later to confirm receipt...but never did.

My wife called the bank and explained what had happened. The bank stated this scam was becoming very serious and many people had divulged their personal account details to this gang and lost serous amounts of money from their accounts.

In these days of economic upheaval and the fact that the Inland Revenue are offering to give a THB12K refund. I can see how some people might drop their guard to these particular scam.

Anyhow, I just wanted to share this experience with you guys so you can be weary of these bastards and make sure the relevant people around you are weary too.

Be Lucky!

[angiud]

People like those call my wife a couple of time a week asking for personal data, like address, id#, bank account, visa#, etc.

If you don't give your info the start to push more. If you refuse they just say call later.

If you try to call back the number, a message says something like private number or unknown.

This happens more then ten times already.

[samran]

It is actually based on how the system has worked for some this year, which gives an air of legitimacy to it all.

After filing my tax return I got an automated call telling me that I had to come down and get my check from the Revenue Dept.

[pattaya_girl]

Thanks for the warning on this.

I would never give my PIN number out but i suppose there are some nieve people out there who might fall for it.

[astral]

NEVER EVER give your PIN or security code to ANYONE.

They simply do not need it.

If money has to be transferred to your account the account name and number is all that is needed

[Maizefarmer]

Give them a false card number and PIN - you'll know they tried to use it when they phone back and say they are having problems transferring the funds! - then tell them you were wasting their time for fun .... it's blatently obvious its a scam, even my daughter knows you don't tell anyone your PIN number (let alone the wife!)

[dale8]

Hello, I hope more people will pass on the phone number of the scammers to the police so they can investigate and put an end to their games. They will do this to more people until they get money as it is their job because it is easy for them to scam. More people need to talk about this so it will not happen to as many people. Cheers.

[thaihome]

There is no problem giving the account number out. Very common and very easy way to make payments is by transferring to an account from an ATM. Some one cannot get money from your account with just the account number (not your ATM card number).

But don’t ever give the ATM card number or the PIN number out.

TH