IRS Issues Warning On New Phone Scam: Here’s How To Protect Yourself

The IRS recently issued a warning about a new trick on the usual impersonation phone scam. An independent organization within the IRS called Taxpayer Advocate Service is being impersonated by criminals and are making calls to taxpayers.

The con artists make unsolicited calls to the victim pretending to be from the Internal Revenue Service which is similar to other IRS impersonation scams. But now the phone number of the TAS office in Houston or Brooklyn has been “spoof” by scammers as they discovered a way to do so. Once the victim answers or returns the call, the impersonator would then ask for personal information such as the Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number.

IRS Issues such as sudden financial difficulty is being resolved by the TAS office but they never call residents out of the blue.

The calls typically go this way:

• To identify themselves, scammers use fake names and IRS badge numbers.
• The taxpayer’s last four digits of their Social Security number is being presented by the scammer.
• To make the phone number appear as if the IRS or another local law enforcement agency is calling, scammers spoof caller ID.
• To support their bogus, scammers may send fake IRS emails to victims.
• To copy a call site, background noise is being heard by the victim.

Scammers then hang up after After threatening victims with jail time or with, driver’s license or other professional license revocation. Others on the other hand soon call back to pretend that they’re from local law enforcement agencies or the Department of Motor Vehicles and again to support their claim, uses a caller ID.

Here are things the IRS will never do:

• Ask you for an immediate payment using a specific payment method such as a prepaid debit card, gift card or wire transfer. Taxpayers who owe taxes are generally mailed a bill by the IRS.
• Threaten to have you arrested for not paying and by bringing in local police or other law-enforcement groups.
• Demand that taxes have to be settled without giving taxpayers the chance to question or appeal the amount owed.
• Call to ask for credit or debit card numbers.
• Call about a refund you didn’t know about.

What To Do To Protect Yourself

In order to protect yourself, here are the things you can do aside from not engaging or responding with scammers:

• If you do not owe a tax but you received a call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, or if you are immediately aware that it’s a scam, never give any information or even engage with the scammer. Just end the phone call.
• Don’t call back if you receive a telephone message from someone claiming to be from the IRS, and you do not owe a tax, or if you immediately know that it’s a scam.
• If someone calls you over the phone from someone claiming to be with the IRS and you owe tax or think you may owe tax, avoid giving out any information. You may call the IRS back to find more information at  1.800.829.1040.
• If you received an email a link or attachment from an unknown or suspicious source, never open it. Don’t click on hyperlinks if you are not sure about the authenticity of an email. It’s best that you go directly to the source’s main Web page instead of clicking any links or attachment in the email you received.
• To protect yourself from malware and viruses found in phishing emails, install a security software in your computer.
• Create a unique password for each of your accounts. They should be strong passwords to protect your online account. The longer the password is the better. Since crooks may know some of your personal details, don’t hesitate to lie about important details on websites.
• Whenever possible, always use two or multifactor authentication. When you do a two-factor authentication, you are not only going to enter your username and password, you will also typically enter a security code sent to your mobile phone or another device

Be aware of any kind of tricks that can be used against you. Remain alert by keeping your personal information safe. If you think something is going terribly wrong, assume it’s a scam and call the legitimate phone number of the IRS.