The last people who are likely to give away free money is the IRD, so receiving an email from them offering an unsolicited refund might catch your eye. 

Too good to be true?  Of course, it's a scam!

It's just one of many going around.  So what are the clues?  Take a careful look at the email copy on the right ...

Firstly, look at where the email came from.  In this case, the 'from' line reads 'customerservice@inlandrevenue.co.nz' - but in fact the IRD's web domain is IRD.GOVT.NZ.   So right away we know it's someone pretending to be the IRD. 

Second clue - the IRD tends to send letters.  Not emails.  And the 'TO' line was blank.  Seems fishy

Next clue, as I 'hovered' my mouse over the link, it highlights the actual web address.  Not 'www.ird.govt.nz/income-tax-individual/' but instead it really goes to something very different, as you can see below.  Very dodgy!

I'm not that keen to go further in case it takes me somewhere and downloads nasty stuff on my PC.  More likely it will ask me for my bank account details so they can try and steal whatever might be there.  I'm not game to find out!  But that's how these things tend to work. 

Be careful.  Unexpected emails with offers that seem to good to be true need caution. 

While we are on the topic of scams, there are also some going around saying 'like' us on Facebook and we'll give you free stuff.  Realistically it's unlikely! With no way of knowing who is logging in, or how many people might do it, there is no way that a business could do this rationally. There are some exceptions however - for example checking into a hotel recently, the receptionist offered that if I 'liked' them on Facebook, she'd give me a bottle of wine there and then.  Ten seconds later, thanks to Facebook on my mobile phone, I'd done just that and now had a bottle of wine.  So it can happen!  But in this case I was right there and it was clearly genuine.