Scams wreck trust in the IRS.

Amid the onslaught of text and email scams, there’s a new tactic targeting your bank account, the Internal Revenue Service warns, and it uses old-fashioned physical envelopes. The choice of a mailer is likely by design as the IRS doesn’t contact taxpayers by email, text message or social media channels to ask for personal or financial information. The scam mailer shows up in a cardboard envelope from a delivery service, and the letter inside has the IRS masthead and the wording “in relation to your unclaimed refund.” However, instead of getting you a refund, the letter goes on to request detailed information that identity thieves themselves can use to file for a tax refund or access other financial information. “This is just the latest in the long string of attempts by identity thieves posing as the IRS in hopes of tricking people into providing valuable personal information to steal identities and money, including tax refunds,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel in a news release. The IRS says that one unusual aspect of the scam is that it uses a physical mailer to lure taxpayers into emailing or calling to provide sensitive information under the guise of “filing information.” That information includes one’s driver’s license number, cellphone number, Social Security number, bank account type and bank routing information.