It happens every year around this time, but may be exacerbated this year by political events: people are getting email messages purporting to be from the IRS and asking you to visit a website and submit your "refund request form" for quick processing. I had three in my mailbox this morning.

My reaction is "yeah, right." As a small business person, I don't get tax refunds - I get to write big checks every quarter. But with all the news about Congress passing a law giving a rebate to almost all taxpayers (the "almost," of course, referring to those of us who pay the most taxes of all who get nothing), some folks out there may be fooled by this one, or at least tempted.

Just in case you aren't tipped off by the brevity of the message (when did you ever get a letter from the IRS that was less than five pages long?), here's a clue that it's bogus: Hover your mouse pointer over that link that it instructs you to click. Here's what you'll see:

Click the image to enlarge it

Instead of going to some .gov address, the link points to a website in the .ro top level domain - in Romania. Isn't that taking government outsourcing a bit too far?

Hit the Delete key as fast as you can on these. Do not click the link, do not pass Go and - unfortunately - do not collect $268.

deb@shinder.net