A CREDITON area resident who received a scam email would like to warn others not to be taken in by it.

The suspicious email was a well-written final payment request, supposedly from HMRC.

It stated: "Don’t ignore this letter - you need to pay us now if you want to stop us taking enforcement action against you."

It was quite threatening and also said: "If you don’t pay now, we’ll take action to make you pay.

"The law allows us to enforce debts by seizing your goods and selling them by public auction.

"A regional sheriff officer acting on a summary warrant will do this for us.

"We can charge fees for this. If you don’t act now it could cost you more money.

"For more information and how to pay us please see attached statement."

The email concluded: "We’ll continue to add interest to the original debt until you pay in full."

The resident forwarded the email to HMRC whose online security team promptly responded thanking the resident for letting them know and said that a specialist team would investigate and take the necessary action.

HMRC will never send notification of a tax refund or ask someone to disclose personal or payment information by email and advise people to be alert and to keep user ID and passwords secure. Details of current scams are available on the website:

HMRC continuously monitor systems and customer records to guard against fraudulent activity and would like to hear from anyone who receives a suspicious email related to HMRC by email at: [email protected] .