STREETWISE: Growing number of people being targeted by scam HMRC calls

But like a growing number of Streetwise readers, the 79-year-old's consolation was short-lived after callous crooks tried to obtain his bank details by posing as tax office officials.

His homecoming turned to distress and anxiety when he listened to a pre-recorded answer phone message claiming the revenue had been trying to contact him because they were about to serve him with a court order over an unpaid bill.

The following day his wife Janice, 81, answered a similar call, after the ominous scam message purporting to come from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was repeated.

The couple tried to put it out of their minds rightly believing it was probably a scam, but after a few days Steve decided to get in touch with Streetwise to ask if we could help put their minds at rest.

'˜I've got to admit we were both scared,' he said. '˜We just tried to think of anyone we could possibly owe money to as we have never run up any debt and have always paid everyone on the nail.

'˜The message said I had to press '˜1' on the phone to speak to someone, but instinctively I just hung up.

'˜The call Janice took the following day was even more menacing and insisted we needed to speak to a '˜case officer' if we wanted to avoid being caught up in a lawsuit.'

Streetwise discovered the concerned couple's crooked calls were coming from a West Midlands number 020 389 5764, but returning them simply came up with a '˜number not recognised' message.

Steve wasn't alone in contacting us.  Although tax office con merchants had been doing the rounds for years, it was clear from the number of readers who'd made contact scammers had got savvier with their methods to get people to disclose their bank details and were harder to spot.

Many reported convincing emails dropping in their inboxes claiming to be from an HMRC '˜office gateway' insisting they were due a refund.

They were instructed to click a '˜customer portal' link and encouraged to enter their bank details to start the claim process.

The emails not only looked official, but appeared as if it had been sent from an official government email address making it difficult to spot.

One computer savvy reader who was nearly taken in by a £360 refund offer did some detective work of his own.

He scanned the network connections on his PC to check it was a genuine government email only to find it came from a private computer.

But we've learned a new clever sophisticated HMRC scam to cheat more people out of cash is gaining traction.

According to Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre, con artists have switched to leaving voicemails and text messages asking people to pay for bogus debts and taxes with online music store iTunes' gift cards.

The fraudsters ask their victims for the card's serial numbers in order to sell them on or redeem the card's cash value.

People are known to hand over gift card voucher codes worth hundreds of pounds following receipt of fraudulent automated messages.

Action Fraud says many hundreds of these calls have been made over recent weeks and with Christmas on the horizon scammers are likely to be ramping up their despicable efforts to rip off honest taxpayers.

An HMRC tax office spokesperson told Streetwise because they were a well-known body criminals abuse it to add credibility to their scams.

She said: '˜These fraudsters are very confident, convincing and utterly ruthless. We don't want to see anyone fall victim to scams just before Christmas. That's why we continue to work closely with crime fighters to ensure taxpayers know how to avoid it.

'˜We take down fraudulent websites and engage with other law enforcement agencies to identify the criminals behind these scams.

'˜They frequently prey on vulnerable people. We urge people with elderly relatives to warn them about these scams and remind them that they should never trust anyone who phones them out of the blue and asks them to pay a tax bill.'

'˜We never send information about refunds or rebates via email, or ask for payment details.

'˜We do call people about outstanding tax bills, and sometimes use automated messages, however such communications would not come out of the blue as the person being called would already know about the matter and it will include their taxpayer reference number.

'˜The public can report refund scam emails to us by sending them to [email protected].

A very grateful Steve told Streetwise he wasn't surprised that many concerned and anxious readers had been in touch about the tax office fraudsters.

'˜He said: '˜Although we took no action because we were pretty sure it must be a scam it was alarming and caused us a great deal of worry and distress at a time when we could well do without it.

'˜I took the action to contact my local paper through your column because I felt it should be highlighted as many people could be frightened or taken in by these calls.