3 On Your Side: Tax Filing Season Kicks Off With I.R.S. Scam Reminder
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Monday marked the first day of the tax filing season, and scammers are trying to take advantage of taxpayers. The biggest phone fraud in I.R.S. history is growing. As 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan tells us, now the government is launching a new campaign to fight back.
The commercial starts with an actress saying, "The I.R.S. is calling me? Is this for real?" The Treasury Department issued this public service announcement warning taxpayers about phone scammers who claim to be I.R.S. agents.
Pastor Al Cadenhead was so scared he couldn't think straight. It started last spring with this threatening call. The recording said, "Don't disregard this message as delay in calling us back may end up in legal matter for you." Cadenhead says, "She was informing me that they were filing a warrant for my arrest." So over the next seven hours he made multiple withdrawals from his bank, and sent the money to the I.R.S. impersonators with pre-paid debit cards. a total of $16,000!
Tim Camus is Deputy Inspector General of Inspections for the Treasury Department. He says, "The tipoff is, if you don't pay immediately, you're going to go to jail, that is the tip off. The I.R.S. would never make a telephone call like that."
In March of last year about 366 thousand people had been called by the scammers. Now that number has grown to more than 900 thousand. Plus the total amount of money stolen has grown from $15 million to more than $26 million dollars.
If you do get a call like that, the I.R.S. says you should just hang up. Authorities say the scam started in India but it's so profitable it has spread to copycats all over the world.
