With tax season quickly approaching, The Macon County Sheriffs Office would like to make citizens aware of a yearly scam that involves an unknown person(s) calling and telling people they are with the IRS and/or Dept. of Treasury. The claim is the person owes money to the IRS and needs to pay immediately or face arrest. If the victim refuses to cooperate, they are then threatened with arrest, deportation or suspension of a business or driver’s license. In many cases, the caller becomes hostile and insulting. After threatening victims scammers hang up and others soon call back pretending to be from the local police or DMV, and the caller ID supports their claim. The callers instruct the victim to pay by use of a pre-paid card such as Green Dot. The Macon County Sheriffs Office asks citizens to remain vigilant and not fall for these scams. Characteristics of these scams can include: • Scammers use fake names and IRS badge numbers. They generally use common names and surnames to identify themselves. • Scammers may be able to recite the last four digits of a victim’s Social Security Number. • Scammers “spoof” or imitate the IRS toll-free number on caller ID to make it appear that it’s the IRS calling. • Scammers sometimes send bogus IRS emails to some victims to support their bogus calls. • Victims hear background noise of other calls being conducted to mimic a call site. If you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, IMMEDIATELY HANG UP THE PHONE. Then: If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 800-829-1040 from a different phone than you received the suspicious call from. The IRS employees at that line can help you with a payment issue – if there really is such an issue. If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes (for example, you’ve never received a bill or the caller made some bogus threats as described above), then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484. If you’ve been targeted by these scams, you should also contact the Federal Trade Commission and use their “FTC Complaint Assistant” at FTC.gov. Please add IRS Telephone Scam to the comments of your complaint. If you discover you have been a victim of Identity Theft by use of your Social Security number, contact your local law enforcement agency to file a criminal complaint after you contacted the IRS. consumer.ftc.gov/blog/dont-let-tax-scammers-get-away-it
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:10:04 +0000
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