The Pinehurst Police say they have received at least five calls this week alone of individuals complaining that someone has contacted them with this scam... The Internal Revenue Service today issued another strong warning for consumers to guard against sophisticated and aggressive phone scams targeting taxpayers, including recent immigrants, as reported incidents of this crime continue to rise nationwide. Please note that the IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by email to request personal or financial information. This includes the telephone or any type of electronic communication, such as text messages and social media channels. The IRS will always send taxpayers a written notification of any tax due via the U.S. mail. The IRS never asks for credit card, debit card or prepaid card information over the telephone. People have reported a particularly aggressive phone scam in the last several months. Immigrants are frequently targeted. Potential victims are threatened with deportation, arrest, having their utilities shut off, or having their driver’s licenses revoked. Callers are frequently insulting or hostile - apparently to scare their potential victims. Potential victims may be told they are entitled to big refunds, or that they owe money that must be paid immediately to the IRS. When unsuccessful the first time, sometimes phone scammers call back trying a new strategy. If you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, here’s what you should do: If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. 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 1.800.366.4484. For more information or to report a scam, go to irs.gov and type scam in the search box. You can file a complaint using the FTC Complaint Assistant; choose “Other” and then “Imposter Scams.” If the complaint involves someone impersonating the IRS, include the words “IRS Telephone Scam” in the notes. If you get an unsolicited email that appears to be from the IRS or a specific IRS component, such as EFTPS, please report it by sending it to [email protected]. If you find a suspicious website that claims to be the IRS, please send the site’s URL by email to [email protected], using the subject line: suspicious website. For more information on phishing scams, please see Protect Your Personal Information and Suspicious e-Mails and Identity Theft.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 21:23:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015