IRS Phone Scams are Surging Around the Country

If I could make a button that would help people solve this problem, it would magically identify the caller, where they live, work, and eats, then supply you with a direct phone number to their home. My next suggestion would be to post that number on your social media accounts and encourage everyone to call it, a lot!

Unfortunately, the odds of this kind of button emerging on the scene are not promising.

All the while, scammers continue to be aggressive, arrogant, threatening, annoying, and intimidating. Their goal? Swindle as much money as possible from you. Sadly, their plan seems to be working.

As of January 2016, the IRS reported that they had received reports of roughly 896,000 contacts since October of 2013. These numbers are increasing consistently on a yearly basis. The IRS determined that there were 5,000 victims who have collectively paid over $26.5 million as a result of the scam!

These IRS scams pose a huge threat to taxpayers around the country. The scammers hope to scare you and make you feel like you have to fork over money to avoid a crisis. The scam artists threaten consequences from police arrest, deportation, license revocation, and other aggressive moves. Understand that these types of calls and scams increase by volume around tax season, but they do continue throughout the year.

A Scammer’s Perfect Victim

Their perfect victim is an elderly person or someone who does in fact owe money to the federal government.  Their perfect victim is someone who struggles with debt and feels they owe everyone money.

Usually, people in way over their heads assume the information they are being told is true. They ask little to no questions; instead, they figure a way to pay the money they “owe.”

One thing we suggest you do is to sign up for some type of identity theft protection, like LifeLock, for example. These companies can perform the hard work for you, like scanning and constantly monitoring over a trillion data points on a daily basis.

Types of IRS Scams

Tax Identity Theft

Here, your personal information is stolen and someone else uses it to file a fraudulent tax return in your name. Examples include:

• Claiming a tax refund using a deceased person’s information

• Filing a tax return using another person’s social security number

• Claiming someone else’s children as dependents

Your personal information can be stolen in so many ways, via mail, old tax returns, corrupt tax preparers/accountants, and phony emails. To avoid tax identity theft:

• Mail your tax returns as early in the tax season as possible before the con artists can beat you to it

• Avoid giving out personal information unless you know who's asking for it and why they need it

• Shred all personal and financial documents

• Hire a trustworthy, reliable tax preparer

• Check the status of your refund after filing at irs.gov/Refunds

For help, contact the IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit at 800-908-4490 and visit irs.gov/HYPERLINK "http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Identity-Protection"identitytheft.

IRS Imposter Scam

In this type of scam, scammers call you over and over again, attempting to intimidate and scare you into giving them your money.

Some of these callers are sophisticated and may know part of your social security number. They also may set the incoming number to show up on your caller ID to have it appear as if the IRS calling. A huge key that should raise a red flag for you is if they ask you to put money on a prepaid debit card and to give them the number. To avoid the IRS imposter scam, you should keep in mind that the IRS will never do the following:

• Call to demand immediate payment

• Call about taxes owed prior to mailing a bill

• Ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone

• Demand payment without an opportunity to appeal the amount owed

• Require use of a specific payment method for taxes, i.e., a prepaid debit card

• Threaten to bring in local police or other law enforcement groups to have you arrested for not making a payment

No one is completely safe from these tactics. Victims of all ages have fallen prey to these scammers and lost money. At our police department alone I’ve spoken to victims of all ages, wealth levels, races, religious beliefs, and career types. 

If you have any doubts, call the IRS directly at 800-829-1040.

Or, if you've spotted a scam or think you may have been scammed, call our helpline at 877-908-3360 for advice and guidance.

What To Do If You Receive A Suspicious Phone Call Or Message

There will very likely come a time when you receive a call or message from an unknown contact. In these situations, it is important that you not feel obligated to have a conversation with someone you do not know. We recommend taking these four steps:

• Hang up! If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, and you do not owe taxes, or if you are immediately aware that it's a scam, do not engage with the scammer and do not give out any information.

• Don’t call back! If you receive a telephone message from someone claiming to be from the IRS, and you do not owe taxes, or if you are immediately aware that it's a scam, do not call them back. The longer you are on the phone, the greater the chance that you will accidentally reveal personal information or authorization information for your accounts.

• Do not give out any information! If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be with the IRS, and you owe taxes or think you may owe taxes, do not give out any information. Call the IRS back at 1-800-291-040 to find out more information.

• Contact the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). Report scam calls by calling 1.800.366.4484 or by using the “IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting” form on their website. You may also want to report the scam to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by using the “FTC Complaint Assistant” to report persons pretending to be from the government; please add “IRS Telephone Scam” in the notes.