According to officials, residents in the Mitchell area are receiving phone calls from both men and women claiming to be IRS agents.
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They say the intended person owes money and will have them arrested if they don’t pay up. Police officials put the number into an Internet search engine and found a website in Arabic, Chief Mike Keith of the Shawnee Township Police Department said.
Another step people can take to protect themselves from potential scammers, especially if they don’t owe taxes or think that they do, is to visit irs.gov.
Police said the scammers can be very convincing and aggressive when talking to the people they have targeted. Legitimate IRS employees or representatives will not initiate contact by phone, email, text or social media, asking for personal or financial information; call and demand immediate payment or taxes without first mailing a bill; and require payment of back-owed taxes by a prepaid debit card, D’Aquilla said.
“In the past month we’ve seen a spike in the calls and a few dozen have been reported to us”, he said, adding that similar calls have been made to residents in nearby communities also. “In many cases, the caller becomes hostile and insulting”. The agency also will not ask for a credit card number over the phone or threaten to involve local police if taxes are not paid.
“This scam has hit taxpayers in almost every state in the country”.
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The Oneida County Sheriff’s Office is warning the public of a telephone scam.
