Beware Of Colorado Tax Refund Scam Texts Targeting Residents

Colorado residents are being warned to be on the lookout for a new scam in which a text message asks for banking information for tax purposes.

What is the New Colorado Text Scam?

Coloradans who have been victimized by the scam report receiving a text message from a number claiming to be the Colorado Department of Revenue and “Official Government State Agency.”

Colorado Scam Has a Threatening Tone

The message, which is persistent and arguably threatening in overall tone, asks recipients to provide their banking information in order to receive a tax refund. The message also lays out the consequences of not replying before the deadline, also given in the body of the message.

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The scam also outlines a period of time in which the recipient of the text message will receive the aforementioned tax refund, with examples of previous scam texts saying that the supposed Colorado Department of Revenue will either deposit the money into the recipient’s account or send a physical check via mail in one to two business days.

The message states that failure to reply to the text will “permanently disqualify you from receiving this refund under Section 19322 of the Colorado Revenue and Taxation Code.”

Colorado Scam Has Telling Signs

These scam messages also list official bank partnerships, which serves as a telling sign that it is, in fact, a scam, if the recipient doesn’t happen to have an account at any of the banks listed.

Recipients are also instructed to reply with a “Y,” then close and reopen the message to activate a link. It goes on to say that if the link isn’t activated after following those steps, recipients of the message should manually copy and paste it into a Safari browser. This step is also a telling sign that this is, in fact, a scam, given that Safari is a browser created by Apple that is only included on iPhones, iPads, and other Apple products.

Check out the full story and an example of one of these scam messages here.