Las fall, authorities in India busted nine — yes, nine — bogus IRS call centers, arresting 70 people on suspicion of tricking (and often scaring) Americans into sending money to settle “pressing” but nonexistent tax bills.
You receive a call from a purported IRS agent claiming you owe money and must pay it immediately. If you can’t (or don’t) come up with the money pronto, well, you can expect a police officer or U.S. marshal at your door, and you will be arrested and thrown in jail. In a 21st-century version of this scheme, you receive a robocall where an automated voice directs you to call a specific number to settle your debts with Uncle Sam. If you don’t call back right away, you could be anything from sued to arrested to deported, or maybe you’ll just have your driver’s license revoked.
It’s an inelegant ruse, of course. The prize? Your hard-earned cash and, for good measure, some of your personally identifiable information (PII).
See also: Implications for Insurance Taxation?
I probably don’t have to explain this hot-and-heavy approach because you’ve probably been on the receiving end of one of these phone calls. IRS scams are so prevalent they topped the Better Business Bureau’s top scams of 2015 by a mile — and that was well before the IRS itself issued a warning to taxpayers saying there was a “summer surge” last year in IRS impersonation scams, with a new variant asking poor, unsuspecting taxpayers to fork over payment on iTunes gift cards.
A sigh of relief?
If you think the major bust in India means you can breathe a little easier every time your phone rings, unfortunately, you’re wrong.
Make no mistake, those nine phony call centers represent only a small fraction of all the nefarious enterprises out there. Consider the latest stats from the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration published in The Wall Street Journal: 8,000 victims have paid more than $47 million because of these completely phony “IRS agents.”
Scams are akin to the old whack-a-mole game or, to put an even finer point on it, a Lernaean hydra — cut one of them down, and two more will spring forth. In fact, around the same time police were raiding the bogus call centers, reports had surfaced that there was a new IRS scam in town: Fraudsters have started to send out notices about fake IRS tax bills related to the Affordable Care Act via email and traditional snail mail in an effort to meet their, ahem, sales goals.
What you can do
You should stay vigilant because it’s about to get significantly more difficult to avoid getting got. The IRS announced it’s going to begin using private collection firms to handle overdue federal tax debt, a change that could effectively throw the one-step method of avoiding phony IRS agents — hang up the phone! — out the window.
The IRS has yet to make it completely clear whether it’s going to allow the collection firms it’s hired to call debtors directly. But even with this significant change, there will be a few dead giveaways that there’s a scammer on the other end of the line.
- If you do owe Uncle Sam, you’ll have received a bill in the mail, and should you be one of the more unfortunate ones turned over to a legitimate collector, you’ll also get written notice that your debt has been transferred over to one of its collection firms: CBE Group, Conserve, Performant and Pioneer.
- You’ll be allowed to make your payments online at IRS.gov/PayYourTaxBill, so, if you’re not being told about this option, hang up and notify the IRS.
- Payments by check should be made to the “U.S. Treasury.” If you’re being asked to write one made payable to the collector or even the IRS (which can easily be altered to read “MRS.”), hang up the phone.
- There will never be any threat involving police or marshals or prison.
- Minimize your exposure to fraud: If you did turn over your most sensitive personal information, request that a fraud alert be put on your credit file by all three credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. You need only contact one, and it will electronically notify the other two. You might also consider a credit freeze, which is more comprehensive but cumbersome because you need to notify each credit bureau individually; lockdown of your credit report prevents thieves from opening new accounts in your name.
- Monitor your accounts. You might wish to purchase a combination credit and fraud monitoring service, which provides instant alerts if someone tries to open up lines of credit. You also may consider enrolling in transactional monitoring programs offered for free by banks, credit unions and credit card companies that notify you of any activity in your accounts. At the very least, keep an eye on your credit yourself. You can do this by pulling your credit reports for free each year at AnnualCreditReport.com and viewing two of your credit scores for free, updated every two weeks on Credit.com.
- Manage the damage. Close any account that has been tampered with or opened by a fraudster without your permission. And if you gave them the veritable skeleton key to your finances — your Social Security number — be sure to notify the IRS, do all of the above and file your taxes as early as possible next year to preclude anyone from getting their grubby little fingers on your refund.
