A MAN has warned of a tax scam after being phoned at home and threatened with arrest over an “unpaid bill.”

Keiran Evans Baldwin posted on the Ross-on-Wye Facebook noticeboard that the scammers had his tax code and details and sounded genuine when they called on Thursday, January 10, on an 020 3095 4140 number.

“Had a phone call off these people this morning saying they were HMRC and there was a warrant out for my arrest due to unpaid tax £1,448,” he said.

“Sounded very genuine as they somehow had my tax code and all of my details. He kept saying all of this is being recorded.”

Mr Evans Baldwin added that the scammer asked him why he hadn’t attended Worcester Crown Court on November 5.

“He even gave me a reference number HM78985 and a warrant ID K909745, but luckily I googled the (phone) number whilst he was on the phone to me and a lot of people said it was a scam, so I told him I wanted to contact the police to confirm that,” he posted.

“He said don’t do that right now because they will come and arrest you.”

The Ross resident called HMRC who confirmed it was a scam and said they had even cloned the HMRC contact number.

He added: “Please pass this on to your older family and friends that are not on Facebook, because it does sound very genuine and a lot of people have lost lots of money.”

Action Fraud said there had been an increase in the reporting of malicious calls, voicemails, text messages or emails to members of the public which appeared to originate from HMRC.

A spokesman said: “The fraudsters state that as a result of their non-payment of tax or other duty, the victim is liable to prosecution or other legal proceedings such as repossession of belongings to settle the balance, but can avoid this by arranging for payment to be made immediately by method such as bank transfer or by iTunes gift cards.”