The fine and tax scam

Two opposite variants: fear of a penalty, or the lure of a refund.

These messages play on two opposing but equally effective instincts. The first announces an unpaid fine about to be increased, and pushes you to pay quickly to avoid the penalty. The second announces a pending tax refund, and asks for your bank details to pay it. In both cases the landing page imitates a public site and captures a payment method or bank details.

How this scam works

The "fine" variant sometimes quotes a plausible registration or date, obtained by cross-referencing or simply invented. The "refund" variant is more insidious: it asks for no money, which disarms suspicion, but for bank details — which are enough to build other frauds. The tax authority, for its part, only pays refunds into an account already declared in your personal space.

How to recognise it

A tax refund is announced although you declared nothing that would justify one.
The page address is not a gouv.fr domain, or adds a word in front of it.
The message asks for bank details, whereas the authority uses the ones already on file in your space.
A fine is announced without your having received a notice by post.

What to do if you received this message

1
Do not follow the link
Open your personal space by typing the official address yourself: any genuine notice appears there.
2
Check in your personal space
Both a fine and a refund show up there. Their absence is enough to conclude.
3
Report it to 33700
Forward the message, then send back the sender's number when the service asks.
4
Warn the people around you
Both variants target people en masse, and the "refund" version fools well-informed people precisely because it asks for no money.

What you must never do

•Never pay a fine through a link received by SMS: official notices arrive by post with a payment reference.
•Never give out bank details to receive a refund announced by message.
•Do not trust the presence of "gouv" in an address: only a domain ending in gouv.fr is official.

Frequently asked questions

Does the tax authority send SMS?+

It sends notifications, but never asks for bank details or a payment through a link contained in a message.

How do I check a fine without clicking?+

Sign in to your space by typing the official address yourself: a genuine penalty appears there, with the notice number you received by post.

Report to 33700 See all scams Glossary

Mon SMS Gratuit is not affiliated with any of the organisations named on these pages; they appear only because fraudsters impersonate them. Our service is also reserved for personal, one-off sending: it sends no campaigns and no commercial messages, and cannot be the source of a fraudulent SMS sent in our name or anyone else's.