Tax-Season Scam: Napa Police Warns Residents

The Napa Police Department is providing a strong warning for everyone to guard against sophisticated and aggressive phone/e-mail scams targeting taxpayers.

People have been receiving aggressive phone calls and suspicious e-mails from subjects in regards to tax due and other tax/IRS issues. Potential victims have been threatened with arrest, having utilities turned off, driver’s licenses revoked or deportation.

Many of the callers are often hostile and rude, trying to scare their potential victims.

The IRS will always send taxpayers a written notification of any tax due via the U.S. mail. The IRS will never ask for a credit or debit card over the phone.

Some characteristics of this scam include:

• Scammers use fake names and IRS badge numbers. They generally use common names and surnames to identify themselves.

• Scammers may be able to recite the last four digits of a victim’s Social Security number.

• Scammers spoof the IRS toll-free number on caller ID to make it appear that it’s the IRS calling.

• Scammers sometimes send bogus IRS emails to some victims to support their bogus calls.

• Victims hear background noise of other calls being conducted to mimic a call site.

• After threatening victims with jail time or driver’s license revocation, scammers hang up and others soon call back pretending to be from the local police or DMV, and the caller ID supports their claim.

• You may receive multiple calls in a day, a week or in a month from the scam artists, the calls are coming from spoof phone lines and are untraceable.

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 or online at https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml

• 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.

For TTY/Speech-to-Speech users, dial 7-1-1- for the California Relay Service or email clerk@cityofnapa.org California Relay Services offers free text-to-speech, speech-to-speech, and Spanish-language services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

• If you have provided money or personal information to people calling you in regards to the IRS/Tax Scam, please call 257-9223 to make a police report. Additionally you can make a report to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1.800.366.4484 or online at https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml

• If you have not provided the scam artist any identifying information or money there is no need to call the Napa Police Department because these phone calls are coming from outside of the United States. You can still provide the information to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1.800.366.4484 or online at https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml as they do track incidents.

Citizens should be aware that there are other unrelated scams (such as a lottery sweepstakes) and solicitations (such as debt relief) that fraudulently claim to be from the IRS.

• Also see: Earthquake Warning System On White House Summit Agenda

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