Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Tom Hayes TD is advising people that the Revenue Commissioners have published a warning regarding a series of hoax email memos regarding tax refunds.

These memos are malicious, but some of them are also very convincing. Revenue never send email requiring customers to send personal information via email or pop-up windows.

“I am aware that dozens of these email memos have arrived in the Oireachtas – it’s not possible to block them because they originate from different sources every day, and ‘dictionary based’ blocks would also block any legitimate correspondence to members from constituents,” Minister Hayes said.

His advice is that if you receive these or any other spam email, you should click on Actions, Spam, Report as spam, and then delete the memo. Do not reply to the memo or click on any link contained in the memo.

If you have already provided bank/credit card details in response to any such memos, you should contact your bank or credit card company immediately to ensure that you have not compromised your account.