Edmonds police sent out a reminder via Facebook Thursday morning that many citizens are reporting they have received scam phone calls from “the IRS.”
According to police, the caller identifies himself as an “IRS agent,” telling the person answering that he or she owes back taxes and needs to pay them immediately — or risk being arrested and sent to jail. The “IRS agent” then tells the victim to buy a Green Dot card with the owed back tax money on it and read the card number and PIN to the “agent” so that “back taxes” that the person owes can be collected.Another common call received is known as the “grandparent” scam, where the caller alleges the person’s grandson or granddaughter or other relative is in jail and that the person needs to send money immediately or their grandchild will go to jail/prison.
“This is a reminder to our citizens that the IRS does not operate this way and does not call you to collect back taxes,” said Edmonds police spokesman Sgt. Shane Hawley. “Also no police agency or sheriff’s department will call you and tell you that in order for ‘little Jimmy’ to not go to jail that you must send money now. These people who use these types of scams use the fear of their victims along with them wanting to help a family member against them in order to extort money.”
If you receive either of these types of calls, police recommend that you hang up immediately and also call 9-1-1 to report the incident.
I received one of these calls last fall and the difficult/scary thing was that the caller id and originating number were really the IRS. But the voice mail left specified a different call back number and the person on the line threatened the sheriff’s office would be contacted if I did not pay. But when I asked for details they said they did not have access to that information.
I have received several fake IRS calls. I didn’t report them to the Edmonds Police Department but have reported them to TIGTA. Here’s the link: https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml
This has happened to me three times. It’s pretty disturbing but I just ignored it. My fear is that the vulnerable population would believe it. How alarming! It’s good to have a discussion about this in our families and in our community.
There is also a scam via telephone saying Microsoft is calling about a Windows program and to turn on your computer, etc. The caller ID shows a cell phone #. The voice is heavily accented. Microsoft has said to NOT give any information to them.
Yep, that happened to me too!
I, too, received an IRS call yesterday around noon. It did not occur to me to report it to the Police on 911. I will report it to Treasury Department IRS Scam Unit.
Dorothy, that’s happened to me several times. The other scam call we’ve received is the carpet cleaning one. I have gotten to the point where if I don’t recognize the phone number, I just let the call go to voicemail.