The Finnish Tax Administration has warned that Finnish taxpayers are being targeted by a phishing scam.
The tax office says that emails being sent to residents of Finland which falsely state that recipients are eligible for refunds. The tax authority has been the focus of similar phishing expeditions before.
The agency says that it never sends its clients messages by email or SMS, and never asks for customers' bank account or credit card numbers, and recommends that people who receive the bogus email to delete it without opening it.
The fraudulent emails sent out on Thursday state (in Finnish) that the recipient is eligible for a tax refund of 318.12 euros and provides a link to read more about it.
Clicking the link - which the tax administration does not recommend - leads to a webpage where the fraudsters try to get people to enter personal and banking details.
This form of internet trickery is commonly known as email phishing, which is the attempt by people pretending to be a representative of a trusted entity (like a state agency, bank or other company) in order to obtain sensitive data like passwords, email addresses and financial details from unsuspecting recipients of the email.
On its website, the tax authority says that "anyone who has given their bank information in response to a spam message is advised to block their bank cards. For Finnish cards, the phone number of the blocking service is 020 333 (if you are not in Finland when making the call, dial +358 20 333)."
The tax administration says it has taken action to resolve the issue.