Local law officials warn public of ‘IRS Phone Scam’

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Local law enforcement officials are alerting the public that a phone scam has been targeting people in and around Charles City for the last few days.

Both the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office and the Charles City Police Department have posted alerts on their Facebook pages, with information about what is known as the IRS Phone Scam.

“The big thing is, never give personal information out over the phone,” said Charles City Police Chief Hugh Anderson.

Anderson said that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will never initiate contact with you over the phone to ask for money or personal information — it’s always through a letter first.

“The callers state they are from the IRS or Social Security and threaten to have you arrested for not paying taxes or overpayment and request you send money,” the Charles City Police Deparetment Facebook post read.

Floyd County Sheriff’s Deputy Travis Bartz said that between the sheriff and the police, there have been more than a dozen reports of calls from scammers just in the last two days.

“They already have a lot of your general information, because it’s public and available on the internet, and they will start asking for specific information, such as bank account numbers or credit cards,” said Bartz. “Do not give any of this information out.”

Bartz said caller ID has indicated the recent calls received locally have come from places such as Florida, California and Jamaica, but there’s no way of knowing for certain if the calls actually came from those places, or if the scammers are using a technique called caller ID spoofing. That’s when scammers use fake caller ID information to trick victims into thinking they are someone or somewhere else.

“It’s nearly impossible to track these people down,” Bartz said.

He said the scammers have been targeting both cellphones and home phones.

According to an informational release from the IRS, the IRS phone scam targets taxpayers around the country, including recent immigrants.

Scammers prey on victims by saying they owe the IRS money. They insist victims pay immediately through a pre-loaded credit card or wire transfer to avoid arrest, deportation or suspension of a driver’s or business license.

According to the IRS release:

• The IRS never asks for a credit card number over the phone or requests the use of a pre-paid debit card or wire transfer.

• The IRS never initiates contact with taxpayers by email, text message or social media to request personal or financial information.

• The IRS never asks for personal identification (PIN) numbers, passwords or similar confidential access information for credit card, bank or other financial accounts.

• The IRS never discusses the possibility of arrest from the police department, any license revocation or deportation — because those are not under the authority of the IRS.

“The IRS does not call people and you will not be arrested for this,” the Floyd County Sheriff Facebook post reads. “The callers may have your name and address, as this is readily available on the internet. We are reminding you to never give out any personal information over the phone.”

Bartz said that this includes banking information.

“If you think it’s from your bank, hang up, and call the bank yourself, to be sure,” he said. “If you think you’ve already given out information, you need to call law enforcement right away.”

The local police and local sheriff’s offices can forward a report of a scam to the proper state and federal offices.