Telephone scammers posing as Internal Revenue Service agents have been calling Santa Cruz County residents asking for tax payments over the phone. The Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Consumer Affairs office warns residents that the IRS does not call or email taxpayers to collect tax payments.
A Santa Cruz senior citizen named Hazel was called by a man claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Tax Fraud Unit. He proceeded to inform Hazel that she owes taxes for the last six years and that the total owing today is $6,850. He requested her bank account information in order to withdraw funds. He then told her that she had been sent certified notifications of the payments, but that she had ignored them. He then threatened her saying that if the case went to court she would owe a total of $16,700. Though Hazel was concerned about the call, she contacted her tax preparer and verified that all of her taxes had been filed and paid, and that the call was a hoax.
There are warnings on the IRS official website about both telephone and email scams. Victims are told that they owe money to the IRS and are told that they need to pay by wire transfer or by pre loaded debit cards. People in the immigrant communities have reported to the IRS that they have been threatened with deportation and driver’s license revocation unless they wire transfer money to the person posing as an IRS agent.
Characteristics of the scam include:
! Scammers give fake names and fake IRS badge numbers.
! Scammers may have a victim’s social security number.
! Email phishing scams will lead a victim to a website that imitates the IRS site.
! After threatening victims with fines or jail time, the scammers hang up and others call back pretending to be from the police or sheriff or DMV.
Call the District Attorney’s Consumer Affairs Unit at (831) 454-2050 to report this and other scams.