Government

Tax Authority Impersonation

Protecting citizens and government income cheques from bad actor impersonation

Bad actors were impersonating the government tax authority to extract confidential tax return information from citizens, then using it to reroute refund cheques and cash them.

$ MillionsIn Fraud Losses Prevented
Integration EnvironmentServiceNow Integration
The Problem

How the Attack Worked

The government's tax authority had a problem with bad actors calling their citizens and impersonating the tax authority. The bad actors would ask for confidential information, such as line 150 from the citizen's tax return, and then use that information to impersonate the citizen to the tax authority. Once they had been wrongfully authenticated using security questions, they would change the address for the citizen's tax refund cheque. Before anyone knew what was happening, the bad actors would cash the cheques and move the money out of the country.

The OrgVerify Solution

How OrgVerify Solved It

The government tax authority implemented OrgVerify to protect their citizens. Now, citizens have a way to verify when it is really the government calling them and when it is actually a bad actor. This has eliminated millions of dollars in fraud and protected vulnerable citizens, who were often targeted with these attacks, from having their government income cheques scammed.

The Outcome & Results

Results & Outcomes

Public trust in government communications improved, and scam-related complaints dropped. The agency also added OrgVerify instructions to its official website and tax notices to educate citizens on how to verify calls.

Key Enterprise Benefits

Citizens can verify government calls before disclosing any tax return information
Eliminates the ability to wrongfully authenticate and reroute government refund cheques
Protects vulnerable citizens most frequently targeted by tax authority impersonators
OrgVerify instructions added to official government website and tax notices

Verification Methods

One-Time Verification CodeGovernment Web Portal VerificationCitizen-Facing Browser Tool

Supported Workflows

ServiceNow Integration
Explore Further

Related Use Cases

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Fraudsters impersonated bank employees to trick customers into sharing login credentials or transferring money. Banks deployed OrgVerify for all outbound account verification calls.

Healthcare

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