December 18: More than 48 hours after being alerted that they're hosting a fake Canada Revenue Agency page that's clearly designed to steal private, personal information from Canadians...Maxnet.Co.NZ is still hosting the page. The company touts itself as a leading edge ISP and lists its awards, including finalist for the best ISP in New Zealand on more than one occasion. You'd think they'd be quick to pull a page designed to promote identity theft.

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An email arrived yesterday (Dec 16/2008) claiming to be from Revenue Canada and telling me I was due for a surprise refund. And with less than a week to go before Christmas, that's great news, right?

"After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 386.00"

Too bad it's a scam designed to trick you into turning over your personal information - name, date of birth and Social Insurance Number.

So how do we know it's a scam?

Think about it. This is too good to be true, right? And when did RevCan start sending you refund notices by email? They just send a cheque in the mail.

Looking a little deeper - that's what suspicious computer types do - the email didn't actually come from services@cra-arc.gc.ca - it came from an Internet site in Saudi Arabia that is doing its best to hide its ownership (kanoosa.com). And the web site where this supposed claim form lives (no name - just an Internet Protocal or IP address - 219.88.222.166)? That's an Internet company called Maxnet.Co.NZ - based in New Zealand. Now kick me if I'm wrong, but I don't think RevCan has set up shop in New Zealand. Where you can enter your personal information and get a pre-Christmas tax refund.

One of the giveaways that this is a scam that doesn't require that sort of technical expertise - look at the link to French on the phony page. The scammer obviously doesn't know how to create the French characters properly and the result is a link to Fran?ais. Can't imagine RevCan making that kind of mistake.

You may have heard the Privacy Commissioner bemoaning the fact that Canada has no anti-spam law - one of the very few industrialized countries in the world that has not taken concrete steps to stop the scourge of increasingly criminal activity -  and is becoming know as a haven for cybercriminals. The nature of this latest scam - looking for SIN numbers, DOB and full name - suggests that while it came from the Middle East and the trick web site is hosted near Middle Earth - the criminals behind this latest online fraud are based right here in the Great White North.

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

November story on CBC:

"Warning issued over fake letter from Canada Revenue Agency"
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/11/17/tax-scam.html">http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/11/17/tax-scam.html