HIGH tax
Is “e-filing portal phishing” a scam?
Yes — this is a known, dangerous scam.
SMS or email claiming to be from the Income Tax Department says you have a pending refund of ₹15,000-₹40,000 and includes a link to "claim" it. The link goes to a fake e-filing page that captures your PAN, bank account, IFSC, and net-banking password.
How to tell
- ⚠ Income Tax Department never sends refund links over SMS. Refunds are credited directly to your registered bank account
- ⚠ URL is not incometax.gov.in but something like incometax-refund.in or itrefund-cbdt.com
- ⚠ Refund amount is suspiciously round (₹15,000, ₹30,750) and consistent across many victims
- ⚠ Asks for net-banking password or full debit card details — IT Department never needs these
What to do right now
- 1 Do not click. Delete the SMS
- 2 If you want to check refund status, log in directly at incometax.gov.in or your e-filing account
- 3 Real refund updates appear in the 'Worklist' and 'Refund Status' sections after login — not in SMS
- 4 If you entered net-banking credentials on a fake page, change your password immediately, alert your bank, and consider freezing your account temporarily
- 5 Report at https://cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930 (national cyber helpline).
Full guidance, red flags, variants & official sources
SMS from "Income Tax Department" offers a refund — click here to claim →