Many e-mail scams are fairly sophisticated and hard to detect. However, there are signs to watch for, such as an e-mail that:

•  Requests detailed or an unusual amount of personal and/or financial information, such as name, SSN, bank or credit card account numbers or security-related information, such as mother?s maiden name, either in the e-mail itself or on another site to which a link in the e-mail sends the recipient.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Dangles bait to get the recipient to respond to the e-mail, such as mentioning a tax refund or offering to pay the recipient to participate in an IRS survey.
  
  
• Threatens a consequence for not responding to the e-mail, such as additional taxes or blocking access to the recipient's funds.
  
  
• Gets the Internal Revenue Service or other federal agency names wrong.
  
  
• Uses incorrect grammar or odd phrasing (many of the e-mail scams originate overseas and are written by non-native English speakers).
  
  
• Uses a really long address in any link contained in the e-mail message or one that does not start with the actual IRS Web site address (http://www.irs.gov). The actual link?s address, or url, is revealed by moving the mouse over the link included in the text of the e-mail.