Beware IRS delinquent taxes phone scam
by Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office
September 7, 2018
SWEETWATER COUNTY, WYOMING - Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell and Sweetwater Scam Alert issued a warning Friday (Sept. 7, 2018) about a resurgent scam circulating in Sweetwater County.
"It’s the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Scam; one that we’ve seen before," Lowell explained. "Our citizens receive recorded telephone messages from people claiming to be agents of the Internal Revenue Service, demanding payment of (allegedly) delinquent income taxes, with instructions to call back. If you do return the call, it's a signal to the swindlers that they now have a prospective victim on the hook, because the person was concerned enough to call back."
The swindler posing as an IRS agent insists on prompt payment through a credit or debit card or a wire transfer. If the person called refuses or begins asking questions, the caller often threatens a visit from law enforcement, arrest, arrest of a spouse, or a driver's license revocation.
Genuine communications from the IRS begin with a letter, not a phone call. Other tipoffs that such calls are a scam include the following:
• Knowledge of the intended victim's Social Security number or its last four digits.
• Recitation of the bogus IRS agent's badge number.
• During the call, the sound of other, similar conversations can be heard in the background.
• The caller becomes rude and hostile and hangs up.
• Follow-up calls from a different person claiming to be an IRS agent.
Lowell makes the following recommendations to those who receive such calls:
• If you actually owe on your federal income taxes or think you might owe, contact the IRS directly at 1-800-829-1040 to speak with a genuine official about your tax issues.
• If you know you don't owe any income taxes, call 1-800-366-4484 to report the caller to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
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