WARNING! Guardia Civil alerts the public to scam offering €200 financial aid from Tax Agency

Image of a would-be cybercriminal.

Image of a would-be cybercriminal. Credit: Fam Veld/Shutterstock.com

The Guardia Civil warned the public about a new scam where cybercriminals impersonate the Tax Agency and offer a way to receive €200 in financial aid.

Spain’s Guardia Civil warned this Friday, March 3, through its official Twitter account, of a scam attempt in which cybercriminals impersonate the Tax Agency by offering a way to receive €200 in financial aid.

“ALERT! Detected smishing campaign impersonating the Tax Agency”, read a tweet from the force. Accompanying the message with a link to the Office of Internet Security, where it explains in detail the fraud, the tweet added: “Requests to update payment information to receive financial aid of 200 euros from the Government. Do not bite, the aim of the fraud is to steal personal and banking data”.

According to OSI, those affected are: “all those who have received the fraudulent SMS and have provided personal or bank details”, its website pointed out. “If you have received an SMS with the aforementioned characteristics, but you have not accessed the link, block it, and delete it from your message tray”, recommended the experts.

“On the contrary, if when you received this message, you have accessed the URL and provided your personal and bank card data, follow the following recommendations”, it reported:

• Contact your bank to report the event and block all unauthorized transactions.

• In the coming months, review your bank account movements and, in case of any unknown or unauthorized movements, contact your bank immediately to cancel them.

• Change your security codes and credit card PIN as soon as possible.

• Collect all the evidence of the fraud: bank statements, the URL of the fraudulent page to which you provided the data and all the information you can provide in order to file a report with the FCSE, as reported by 20minutos.es.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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