Warning has been sent by the Income Tax department about phishing e mails being sent to people asking for personal details like PAN card and credit card numbers. The fraud mails contain the official logo of the IT department.

Phishing scam is becoming the most actively featured form of internet scam in which the scammer sends fraudulent e mails and develops false websites which ask customers to give away their personal details.

Warning notice has been put by the department which reads: "It is clarified that the Income Tax Department does not send e-mails regarding refunds and does not seek any information regarding credit cards of taxpayers. Taxpayers are, therefore, cautioned that they should not respond to such mails and if they do so it would be at their risk and responsibility."

This is a time when most tax payers are filing for refunds. The scammers have coordinated their time very well to generate these hoax mails.

Commenting on the issue, Rajat Khare, CEO and director, Appin Technologies, an IT security management firm said that the scammers are very intelligently using the name and logo of the I-T department to make people fall into their trap.

Once the details are revealed by the people, these attackers use the information to carry out financial frauds.

The attackers also file false income tax returns using the PAN card details of the customer, Khare said.

"This is the usual trend, every year hackers target the IT dept website during this time of the year," he further added.