Fake tax-office refund messages are after your banking login
Criminals are sending a new wave of emails and text messages that appear to come from FinanzOnline and Austria's Federal Ministry of Finance. The current wave centres on a refund of around 1,200 euros. Earlier waves used other figures, including 1,627, 578.99 and 286.93 euros.
Two versions are circulating side by side. One offers money: you are owed a refund, confirm your bank details to receive it. The other threatens: a correction to your annual settlement means you owe money, and a bailiff will begin seizing your household goods unless you pay at once.
Both versions lead to a counterfeit FinanzOnline login page. It captures your Verfügernummer and PIN, which hands the criminals access to your tax account. In the threatening version, victims are also pushed into making an immediate bank transfer.
Three checks expose the fraud.
The real FinanzOnline exists only at finanzonline.bmf.gv.at, and genuine notifications come only from finanzOnline@bmf.gv.at. Any other address or web address is fake, however convincing it looks.
The Austrian tax administration never names an exact refund or debt amount in an email. A genuine message tells you only that a document is waiting for you in your FinanzOnline Databox. An email that states a precise sum is a fake, every time.
Official decisions, or Bescheide, arrive by post or in your Databox. They never arrive as a link in an email or a text message.
If you have already entered your details, call your bank immediately to block any transfer, change your FinanzOnline password, and report the incident to the police.
This family of scams returns regularly in new forms and with new amounts. The three checks above are worth remembering; the specific figure in the message is not.