Warning over scammers pretending to be from French finance ministry

People – and especially businesses – in France are being warned of a phishing scheme in which scammers use the contact details of finance ministry workers to obtain customer information.

The Direction générale des Finances publiques (DGFiP), which is involved with the taxation of individuals and businesses, has published a statement warning that over recent weeks there have been several instances of identity theft concerning the deputy director of public finance, Antoine Magnant.

Scammers have sent emails in his name and called people claiming to be him.

The DGFiP is urging people who may receive such messages to consider their content very carefully, looking for signs that they could be fraudulent.

Such signs may include grammatical or spelling errors, or direct requests for bank details.

Emails from antoine.magnant@dgfip-info-gouv.com should automatically be treated with suspicion. You can find the real email address for your taxation office on your tax notices and on impots.gouv.fr

Some telephone scams use a technique called ‘spoofing’, through which scammers make a different number appear to that which has really been used.

Because of this, a call could appear to be from a DGFiP number (01.40.04.04.04).

If you are worried that you could have been the target of a scam involving the DGFiP, do not respond to the email or phone message.

The DGFiP has initiated legal proceedings in a bid to stamp out these scams. You can also report potential scams to Signal Spam, which works in conjunction with the national police and the national data regulator CNIL so that fraudulent schemes can be investigated.

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