Tax time is stressful enough, but now the Better Business Bureau is warning about a phone scam featuring an IRS impersonator and threats of a lawsuit.
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For months, taxpayers have been receiving aggressive and threatening phone calls from crooks who claim to be IRS agents and demand immediate payment of back taxes with a debit card or wire transfer. “Any of these “quick payment” scenarios are a huge red flag that the call is a scam”.
Scammers will call claiming to be with the IRS, saying they need personal information and if they don’t get it the person will go to jail. File your return early, to beat the scammers to the punch WHAT IF YOU’VE BEEN SCAMMED: Contact the IRS right away – you will need to fill out an Identity Theft Affidavit Get a PIN from the IRS to use next year, so you can prove you are you.
YCSO and its law enforcement partners have sent numerous media/community alerts regarding this scam during the last couple of years. They demand that the victim pay a bogus tax bill.
Require you to use a specific payment method for your taxes, such as a prepaid debit card. Others use emails that contain a fake IRS document with a phone number or email address for a reply. The IRS also does not ask for PINs, passwords or similar confidential access information for credit card, bank or other financial accounts.
The pair told the victim that she owed $3,800 based on an audit of past returns, and that she’d be arrested if she didn’t pay immediately, D’Evelyn said.
If you know you owe, or think you may owe taxes…
If you are contacted by an IRS scammer, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office recommends you hang up immediately and contact the IRS directly to verify if you owe back taxes.
The call sounded legitimate, with “Wilson” supplying a badge number. The IRS is also telling taxpayers to never provide personal information to suspicious websites or strangers calling out of the blue. Please add “IRS Telephone Scam” in the notes.
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The IRS is reporting that phone scam victims paid $26.5 million to impersonator since 2013.
