Fake IRS/HMRC tax refund or stimulus payment phish — refund pending/approved + click link to claim + enter bank account / SSN / card details to receive it
fake-tax-refund-stimulus-payment-phish
What this tier means
High-confidence threat indicator — phishing, impersonation, BEC, or scam pattern. Strong contributor to the trash decision.
How Gorganizer detects this
Phishing email impersonating the IRS, HMRC, or a generic "tax authority" — claiming the recipient has an unclaimed tax refund, tax rebate, or stimulus payment ready to collect. The email directs the victim to click a link and enter bank account details, debit card numbers, Social Security numbers, or National Insurance numbers to "verify identity" and receive the funds. Legitimate tax authorities never initiate contact by email to request financial details; the IRS explicitly states it communicates by postal mail only. IRS 2024: phishing impersonation is the top complaint to the IRS criminal investigation division; the agency sees a 400%+ surge in tax-related phishing emails during January–April filing season. The tell-tale signs: external domain (not irs.gov or hmrc.gov.uk), urgency/expiry window, request for bank details via click.
False-positive guard
Every signal in Gorganizer feeds a multi-module score — never a sole verdict. This is a threat-tier signal — it adds a strong contribution to the trash score. The full pipeline still requires convergence across multiple modules + a margin over the safety floor before deletion happens, and Gmail's trash (30-day recovery) is always used — never permanent delete.
About the scoring engine
Gorganizer's scoring engine emits 2,143+ signals across six modules — headers, sender, subject, body, attachments, and structural metadata. Every email is scored by every module independently; the final verdict requires multiple modules to agree and the trash score to beat the safety floor by a margin.
Sacred safety guards — never delete starred emails, replies, calendar invites, receipts/invoices, or attachments — apply unconditionally regardless of any signal.
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