Alert Banker Stops IRS Scam on Bloomfield Township Woman

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI — A Bloomfield Township woman has the manager of her bank to thank for not being swindled out of thousands of dollars from someone claiming to be an IRS agent, police said.

The manager of the Bank of America branch at 3700 W. Maple Road alerted the Bloomfield Township Police Department on Aug. 22 that an elderly woman was attempting to deposit $6,743 into someone else’s account.

When police questioned the woman, she said she had gotten a call from the phony IRS agent, who said that if she didn’t make the deposit immediately, she would be put in jail.

“They gave her very specific directions and had her continually talk on her on her cell phone and take her home phone off the hook so she could not have contact with anyone else,” police said in a news release.

Officers were able to stop the transaction and return the the money to her account, and then contacted the victim’s family for assistance.

In another recent fraud report on the same day, a 92-year-old woman told police she had received a call from a woman identifying herself as the woman’s granddaughter. She claimed she needed bail money after causing a car accident while texting.

The caller put another individual on the line who claimed to be an attorney and asked the victim to purchase $2,000 in iTunes gift cards. Again, the scammer offered specific instructions.

The woman purchased the gift cards and transferred account numbers as instructed, but then became suspicious, police said.

Bloomfield police investigators are following up on both cases.

Patch file photo