If you receive what appears to be an official e-mail from the Internal Revenue Service — beware.

The e-mail, circulating through inboxes throughout Maine, tells recipients they are eligible to receive a tax refund for a certain amount.

Not true. It is a scam — not an official IRS communication.

The IRS does not communicate via e-mail, said Peggy Riley, IRS public affairs officer for New England.

They also will never ask for your Social Security, credit card and pin numbers, as the phony e-mail does.

The deceptive e-mail directs recipients to claim the refund by using a link in the e-mail that brings the reader to a Web site asking for personal financial information.

“They’ve created it to look exactly like the IRS Web site,” Riley said.

One way to protect yourself is to make sure the Web site address ends in .gov, not .com, she said. The official IRS site address is http://www.irs.gov/.

For information about how to protect yourself, see the
IRS page on suspicious e-mail and identity theft.