Scam Alert: IRS Imposters Continue To Call, Warns MN AG

Criminals posing as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents continue to call Minnesotans and attempt to intimidate them into paying money, warns Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson.

Swanson said these criminals use a variety of ploys to lure victims, including using fake names, false IRS badge numbers, and even reciting the victim’s mailing address or the last four digits of their Social Security Number. The callers may threaten arrest, jail time, driver’s license and passport revocation, and other legal action, unless the victim pays for purported back taxes or fines supposedly owed to the IRS.

In many cases, it can be difficult to detect these fraudsters, who often call from outside the United States, according to a news release. They use “spoofing” technology to hide the origin of their calls. Spoofing is used by these scammers to make a Washington D.C. telephone number appear on a resident’s caller ID, thereby masking their identity and evade law enforcement.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) notes that these scammers make more than 10,000 calls per week. In the past two years, victims of this scam have reportedly lost $15 million.

If you receive a call that appears to come from the IRS, remember that the IRS does NOT:

1. Ask for credit or debit numbers over the phone;
2. Require you to use one specific method to pay back taxes; nor
3. Threaten to bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for failure to pay taxes.

The best way to handle such a call is to hang up the phone. Speaking with the scammers may encourage them to call again.
You can report this scam to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration as follows:

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration

• 1401 H Street NW, Suite 469Washington, DC 20005
• (800) 366-4484

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