Fraudsters are mailing fake IRS letters with QR codes to a look-alike portal. The agency does not operate any such portal and never asks for wallet info.
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The IRS Criminal Investigation division says fraudsters are mailing counterfeit letters that tell cryptocurrency holders to enroll in a compliance portal the agency does not operate.
IRS-CI issued a fraud alert Thursday warning that the letters arrive in plain envelopes, printed to look like an official notice from the Department of the Treasury, carrying a notice number and a tax year range from 2017 through 2026. Each one includes a QR code that resolves to a look-alike domain built to resemble irs.gov, according to a Tuesday Coinbase blog post that offered more detail.
The agency does not send QR codes in official correspondence and will never ask taxpayers to register their exchanges or wallets, the alert said. Recipients can confirm any real notice through an online account at irs.gov and report suspected fraud to the agency and to the FTC.
“Criminals continue to exploit public trust in government agencies by creating convincing fake websites and official-looking correspondence,” IRS-CI Chief Jarod Koopman said. He told taxpayers to stop and verify the source before responding to unexpected requests for personal information.
The fake portal asks visitors to name the exchange or hardware wallet they use, estimate the value of their holdings, and supply a phone number for a “verification” call. A caller posing as support tries to extract a one-time code, a password or a recovery phrase, or to talk the target into moving funds to a wallet the attacker controls.
The look-alike domains were traced to a registration made days before the letters went out, through a Hong Kong registrar, with hosting in Romania on a network already known for FedEx and banking phishing pages.
Genuine IRS crypto correspondence has become common enough for the ruse to work. The agency has sent educational compliance letters to suspected under-reporters since 2019, when it mailed more than 10,000 notices to virtual currency owners. Volumes climbed further ahead of new 1099-DA broker reporting rules.
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