ISSUE NO. 1435
3 - 9 JANUARY 2013
WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.ES
Expat discovers tax rebate a fraud
A New Year scam alert
A NEW YEAR alert has gone out over an ongoing online UK tax scam! For while email seasonal greetings and cards were being exchanged by thousands of expat families in Spain, fraudsters were once more circulating messages purporting to be from the UK tax authorities to trick expatriates into revealing their bank details. What Costa del Sol resident Rita Arnold thought might be a tax rebate bonus has since been confirmed as a huge scam. She received an email that looked totally authentic from what she thought were the tax authorities stating that she was owed £300 (€372). They requested she fill in a form with her account number, how much money was in her credit card account, and also passwords. Clearly had she provided the details as requested, instead of receiving a £300
(€372) payment to her account, she would have found it rifled by the scam originators. Mrs Arnold decided to check the email with her lawyer son and he immediately identified it as a fraud. She is not the only British expatriate to have received such scam attempts. Six months ago Siobhan Hutton* of Benalmadena received an email seemingly carrying an HM Revenue and Customs letterhead with the subject ‘Unclaimed Tax Refund Notification’. But something did not seem quite right with the email, even though at first glance it appeared authentic. So Mrs Hutton phoned the British tax authorities with regard to the possible £239.41 (€300) rebate. And she was immediately warned it was a scam. “They asked me to forward the email Turn to Page 4
FRONT EXTRA
€6,000 lottery wins A VICAR lottery outlet has sold tickets worth €7,698,000 corresponding to the 11,419 and 31,826 Christmas Lottery
numbers, each carrying a €6,000 prize per ticket. *** A MILD earthquake registering 2.4 on the Richter Scale has been felt in Canjayar and Laujar de Andarax. *** A TOTAL of 740 kilograms of immature fish have been confiscated by the authorities this year in Almeria Province.
FLASHBACK: Shoppers out seeking bargains at last year’s winter sales.
All geared-up for the winter sales
TRADERS are now gearing up hoping for a business bonanza when the annual winter sales open on Monday. Shoppers able to splash the
cash - or with plans to hit their credit cards will find many bargains, with discounts of up to 70 per cent. Shops hope - Page 3
22 are held in swoop by Almeria police POLICE have arrested 22 people in Almeria Province for allegedly conning the Social Security and the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) out of €314,515 in unemployment pay and Social Security contributions. The group offered
unemployed people the possibility to illegally collect monthly allowances and subsidies in exchange for a €300 monthly fee. They have been charged with tax office and Social Security fraud and document forgery. National Police learned
of the fraud after a citizen reported having received a letter from the Social Security about a group of people newly-enrolled as working for a cleaning company, of which he was the owner when, in reality, he did not have any involvement with the company.