IRS Fraudsters 'Inundating' Marblehead with Calls

Marblehead police said Tuesday morning that the town has been inundated with fraudulent calls from people claiming they work for the Internal Revenue Service.

The IRS said the calls are part of “a sophisticated phone scam” targeting taxpayers by saying they owe money to the IRS and it must be paid promptly through a pre-loaded debit card or wire transfer.

If the victim refuses to cooperate, they are then threatened with arrest, deportation or suspension of a business or driver’s license by the caller and in many cases, the caller becomes hostile and insulting.

“This scam has hit taxpayers in nearly every state in the country. We want to educate taxpayers so they can help protect themselves. Rest assured, we do not and will not ask for credit card numbers over the phone, nor request a pre-paid debit card or wire transfer,” IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.

Werfel said that the IRS’ first contact with taxpayers about a tax issue is likely via mail.

If you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, you should:

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.

If you’ve been targeted by this scam, you should also contact the Federal Trade Commission and use their “FTC Complaint Assistant” at FTC.gov. Please add “IRS Telephone Scam” to the comments of your complaint.

The IRS does not ask for PINs, passwords or similar confidential access information for credit card, bank or other financial accounts.

More information about scams involving the IRS is available on the genuine IRS website, IRS.gov.