‘Your income-tax refund of ₹18,450 has been approved. Verify your bank account within 24 hours: [link]’. The link asks for net-banking login and an OTP.
How refunds actually work
An income-tax refund is credited to the bank account already pre-validated on the e-filing portal; the status shows on incometax.gov.in under ‘View filed returns’. GST refunds are tracked on the GST portal. The department does not send links and never asks you to ‘verify’ an account through an SMS.
The tells
A link that is not incometax.gov.in / gst.gov.in; a deadline; an odd amount to look specific; a request for login, card or OTP; a sender that is a mobile number.
If you entered details
Change the net-banking password from a clean device, call the bank to block, check the e-filing portal for changes to your bank account, and report at cybercrime.gov.in.
Checklist
- ☐Refund status checked only on the official portal
- ☐Bank account pre-validated on the e-filing portal
- ☐No link from an SMS opened
- ☐Sender header checked (official SMS use registered headers)
Where to report
- • 1930 — national cyber-crime helpline (money lost: call within the first hour)
- • cybercrime.gov.in — National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal
- • chakshu.sancharsaathi.gov.in — report fraud numbers and SMS
- • sachet.rbi.org.in — RBI complaints about unregistered lenders / deposit schemes