FAQ says to sign into "IDNotify" you use an email link. Is that a joke? Fake "urgent" emails with links is exactly how ID theft happens. What is the legitimate URL?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
May 26, 2022
1 reply
5 views

I get an "urgent" sounding email supposedly from Intuit about some IDNotify finding on the "dark web", with a link to sign in to some mystery site (NOT the intuit.com domain). Guess what? The 100% WRONG thing to do to protect your identity is to sign in using that convenient email link. That's exactly how you get your identity stolen.

You're supposed to go to the website using a known URL and sign in normally. But when I do that, no link for "IDNotify" at all. Someone please tell me I missed something obvious and there's a safe way to sign in to this thing. Otherwise I've no idea how to validate whether this email is even legitimate. If I were running this operation I'd be embarassed - basic security 101 failure!

TurboTax Premier Online

macuser_22

Alumni - Champ

It's a scam to steal your personal information. Trash the email and do not click on the link.

**Disclaimer: This post is for discussion purposes only and is NOT tax advice. The author takes no responsibility for the accuracy of any information in this post.**

mesquitebean

Level 15

@ehammers

[Edited for clarity 5/26/22 at 00:15 AM Pacific.]

I don't know about the legitimacy of (or lack of) your email, but IDnotify can come into play if you purchased Max Benefits or Premium Services, as I'll explain below. Did you purchase one of those products? Even if you did, there are some precautions you should take to investigate. I would think an alert notice would come from IDnotify and not purportedly from Intuit, but I don't know how that works.

This is a user community forum--not a direct route to TurboTax Support--so we don't know if your email is legitimate or not. The safest thing to do, as you mentioned, is to first be extremely cautious, and do not click on any links in the email and don't download any attachments. Here are some ways you can investigate:

To speak to TurboTax Support about the email to see if they can verify it:

FAQ: What is the TurboTax phone number?
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/using-turbotax/help/what-is-the-turbotax-phone-number/00/25632

Intuit Security can also evaluate it, if you forward a copy to them with the headers intact. Go to this page

https://security.intuit.com/contact-us

Scroll down to a blue button where it says: Report a fake/phishing email: "Did you get an Intuit email that doesn't seem right?"

Did you purchase MAX Benefits, or are you a California filer and purchased Premium Services?

Those 2 add-on products include identity monitoring and identity protection services and use IDnotify, a part of Experian.

If you purchased one of those products, here is another TurboTax FAQ about IDnotify, which provides a direct link to the IDnotify website without using an email link. Once you are at the main IDnotify website, go to their "Contact Us" page using the contact tab at the very top. Then you should see a page with their phone number. However, I don't know if using that general IDnotify customer service phone number will be able to help you or not, since with MAX or Premium Services you are partnering through TurboTax, so there's an extra layer that the IDnotify agent may or may not be familiar with.

FAQ: Who is IDnotify and what is their relationship to TurboTax?

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/choosing-a-product/help/who-is-idnotify-and-what-is-their-relationship-to-turbotax/00/26762

ehammersAuthor

Level 2

I did purchase the MAX benefits thing this last year, so theoretically it could be real. It's "from" idnotify but that's easily spoofed - I think it is probably a scam mail. I didn't go to any of the links and have forwarded to Intuit. It has this "identitymanagmentcenter dot com" link or something in there, which I think is scammer trash.