Accountant not leggit?

[Ethermumska]

My friend hired an accountant to deal with his self assessment, he paid her all upfront and for over 1 month she keeps giving excuses as to why she has not completed the assignment. The latest is she informed him that she completed the work and that she is now waiting for HMRC to approve the changes and that my friend will receive all in the post. He asked her to provide him with some evidence, like a reference number, of the work she has done but she has not responded since.
We are starting to think something is not right. Any advice on whether she should have provided him with a reference number or some other sort of evidence is welcome.

Is the agent a member of a professional body?

HMRC are very interested in poor agent behaviour.

You can grass the agent up anonymously if required.

Did you friend fill in an authority to act form (64-8).

I would contact HMRC as a matter of urgency using the online chat and ask them to check what is going on in the account. If there is no registered agent acting for your friend this could be fraud. This will also log that you contacted them if the agent is attempting fraud, so will offer some protection as the agent may be impersonating them.

Apparently she isnt a member of a body.
Do you mean she can be using my friends tax account to conduct fraud/ money laundering for someone else?

Apparently she isnt a member of a body.
Do you mean she can be using my friends tax account to conduct fraud/ money laundering for someone else? My friend did not fill in an authority form.

It’s fraudulent for an agent to use a clients own HMRC log in!

HMRC need an authority to act. It’s basically illegal for HMRC to speak to someone else without the customers permission.

Your friend needs to contact HMRC now and let them know they have been the victim of potential fraud.

Either the agent is completely incompetent or it is some sort of repayment fraud.

Your friend should change the password for their gateway account

The other possibility is some sort of identity fraud. The whole thing sounds very odd.

Yes do this now.

Thank you everybody for your input and advice! I thought I'd update you: of course it was a scam. She refused to refund my friend as she still claims she did the work despite HMRC staff having assured my friend there were 0 changes made to his self assessment. He was also told to contact action fraud. They also are convinced that she is a scammer and he got a crime ref number from them which he then gave his bank and the bank reversed the payments he had made to the scammer. The scammer's reaction to this was to threaten him via sms, saying that both her personal and business accounts were frozen 'thanks to him' and that he is to expect a home visit from some 'friendly' people. So in addition to reporting her to action fraud he also reported her to the police.

Oh blimey @Ethermumska what a horrible situation for your friend.
I was just going to comment that my husband's accountant sends his return for his approval and signature prior to submitting to HMRC. And invoices him after the return had been submitted with, I think, two weeks to pay the accountant's bill. (We pay immediately)

Thank you for updating, it’s always interesting to hear outcomes on these things. Worrying though for your friend that this person has all of her personal and business data - far more than they would be able to gather otherwise. Perhaps suggest to your friend to register for credit check agencies and any other credit monitoring service to protect themself? If they speak to their bank and Action Fraud they should be able to recommend any other appropriate steps.