IRS Phone Call Scam
Here is another particularly scary scam. Someone from the IRS calls and says that they need to talk you right away or they will forward the issue to the courts and have you arrested. If you call them back, they strong arm you into going down to Western Union and sending a Money Order. They won’t let you off the phone until you send the money order, once you get to that point, it is too late!
I theorize that they are getting information from one of the recent credit card or data breaches. Since I’ve been subject to four of them in the past year alone, I’m pretty resigned to the fact that I’m going to see more of this. (Yes, I’m signed up for the free Credit Checking reports.)
“Steve Wilson” has been working pretty hard to get a hold of me. So far he has called me from three different phone numbers:
773-672-3238
203-340-6914
347-308-7891
347-688-5901 (Added 04/01/2015)
The first day he did this, he must have been new on the job. I got five calls from the 773 phone numbers, and three voice mails following the same script. Since then he’s varied the script a bit but it is essentially the same.
Unfortunately for Steve, the IRS is well aware of these, but there is little that can be done about it. While the IRS might call you to discuss an issue, it is more likely they will mail you first. Even if they did call, they would not demand immediate payment over the phone, and certainly not via Western Union.
Please do not fall for this one!