JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- An 80-year-old Jacksonville woman who was recently just a few mouse clicks away from becoming a online scam victim has sounded the alarm on a scam made to look like an e-mail from the IRS.

Police said that Carolyn Hicks' close call has served as an alert to a timely scam that could have victims handing away their personal information.

Hicks said the e-mail she got looked so real that she couldn't tell at first that it was a fake.

"I thought that I was supposed to get a refund, so I figured it was legitimate," Hicks said.

She said the IRS logo on the e-mail looked real, but it was the amount of the refund in the text that caught her attention.

"When I read it, they said I was getting X number of dollars, which was less than half of what the accountant said I was going to get," Hicks said.

She clicked on a link in the e-mail that took her to what she thought was the IRS Web site, where she was told that to get her tax refund all she had to do was enter her personal information.

"It wanted my e-mail, full name, billing address, city, state, zip code, phone number, date of birth, mother's maiden name, Social Security number, credit card and PIN number," Hicks said.

She admitted to Channel 4 that she almost fell for the scam.

"I almost did -- if it hadn't asked for the PIN number," Hicks said. "This is stealing your identity -- isn't it? They're getting everything about me."

The IRS is aware of the e-mail scam that landed in Hicks' inbox, and so are Jacksonville police.

"These are crooks that are out there, sitting out there, sometimes sitting behind walls, sometimes behind bars, thinking of these schemes so when they get out they think of a cleaner, smoother way to get your money," said Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesman Ken Jefferson.

Hicks said she is thankful that she realized it was a scam before it was too late.

"I think they could have cleaned me out," she said. "Be careful."

For more information about e-mail scams and to report the scam, phishing or bogus IRS Web sites, visit IRS.gov.