[TriLUG] OT: Security concern: H&R Block wanted my DL number to do my taxes

[William Sutton via TriLUG]

I know a guy whose employer's HR department got scammed with "we need all 
of this year's W-2's.  Please email them to me."  And fell for it. 
Several of his co-workers filed their taxes only to discover that their 
refunds had already been issued.  My friend only files paper taxes :-)

William Sutton

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017, Thomas Delrue via TriLUG wrote:

> My tax attorney told me it's a new thing that the IRS is requiring "to
> prevent fraud" (implying that it is to prevent your refund going to
> someone else, which has indeed been a particular mechanism of fraud in
> the last couple of years).
> I believe the part about the IRS requiring it, I'm more sceptical about
> the fraud part and specifically how it prevents the scam but then I'm on
> the paranoid side of the spectrum so YMMV.
>
> On 03/30/2017 06:40 PM, Joseph Mack NA3T via TriLUG wrote:
>> They've been doing my taxes for several years. This year I had to give
>> them my DL number before they would do my taxes. This caught me
>> unawares. I didn't think to ask what would happen if I refused. They
>> just said "We're required to collect it". They didn't say who told them
>> to collect it; the IRS, H&R Block...
>
>