kimblr.com

BALTIMORE (Map, News)- Valerie Hayes hasn’t received her economic stimulus payment yet, but she’s already thought about how she’ll spend it.
“I’m going to pay a bill first, and then I’m going to buy some summer clothes,” said Hayes, 54, of Baltimore, as she ate lunch outside in the Inner Harbor on Wednesday.
Some taxpayers are starting to see the stimulus payments hit their bank accounts this week if they chose direct deposit on their tax forms. The Internal Revenue Service is issuing payments of up to $600 for individuals and up to $1,200 for married couples, plus an additional $300 to couples for every child they have younger than 17.
Other Baltimore-area taxpayers said they’re planning to use the money to pay various bills.
“My income taxes are already going to some bills, so this will add to it,” said Jevon Bennett, 26, of Baltimore.
Valencia McIntosh, 24, of Baltimore, said she’s going to “pay off student loans,” while Warren Pennington, 57, of Baltimore, said he plans to use the money to “pay gas and electric bills.”
Some people, though, plan to spend all of their stimulus money on discretionary purchases.
“I’m just going shopping with mine,” said Michael Powell, 23, of Baltimore.
“I just bought a house, and I want one of those lawnmowers with zero turning radius,” said Stavros Papaminas, a lawyer for Allstate.
Others are even using the money for random purchases.
“I’m going to get my dog fixed,” said Amy Oxenhan, 22, of Pasadena.
According to a recent survey from the Washington-based National Retail Federation, 41 percent of consumers plan to use their stimulus payments on purchases, 28 percent plan to pay off their debt, 19 percent plan to save the payment, 4 percent will invest the money and 4 percent will pay medical bills.

examiner.com

As might be expected, email users are beginning to see the first stages of what is expected to be a major phishing attack capitalising on the populace’s eager expectation of IRS refund checks, as well as the Bush administration’s economic stimulus payment distribution, scheduled to begin May 2.
Similar to other iterations of this scheme, this one also has an IRS logo at the top of the message copied directly from the IRS website, according to an entry on the MX Logic IT Security Blog.
Researchers at MX Logic report that samples they are seeing allege to be from “service@irs.gov” and have a subject line of “2008 Economic Stimulus Refund.”
The phish content says something like: “Over 130 million Americans will receive refunds as part of President Bush’s program to jumpstart the economy.” Or, “Our records indicate that you are qualified to receive the 2008 Economic Stimulus Refund,” or some variation along these lines.
But by clicking on the link, instead of a payoff, unwary computer users land on a prototypical phishing site, said MX Logic.
Once there, they are prompted to enter their bank routing number and checking account number with the promise that the rebate will be directly deposited into their checking account.
Sam Masiello, director of threat management at MX Logic, told SCMagazineUS.com today that his company expected to see these sorts of scams emerge at this time after last month’s deluge of phishing spam in advance of the April 15 tax deadline.
The US$168 billion expected to be dispersed via this economic stimulus payment distribution is quite an incentive for cyberthieves preying on email users, says Masiello. He added that the tactic of establishing a sense of urgency to trick end-users may prove to be effective.
In fact, this reporter received two versions of this scheme today (see image) allegedly from “Internal Revenue Service (IRS) <admin@irs.gov>.” Fortunately, clicking through on the link is denied by the corporate network protection here.

securecomputing.net.au