We have all gotten those e-mails from the Nigerian prince asking for bank information so he can safely get money out of his country, but what if the IRS calls you? Well, first off, the IRS cannot call you unless they have already established contact with you through several letters. Those letters will establish one designated person who you are to talk to – usually a revenue agent.
There are so many new phone scams out there and quite a few are based around the IRS. A new one is telling you that you owe a “federal student tax”. First of all, there is no such thing as a “federal student tax” and second, the name alone would imply that you have to be a student. With over the half of the country being either a student or having a student in their household, lots of people are falling for it.
One of our friends got several voicemails from someone claiming to be with the IRS. Our friend was told that they were going to arrest her. She called back and they said she owed over $3000.00 and she was going to go to jail. She asked if they could pay the penalty to avoid jail and they said, “No.” She then told them that she was recording the call and the person at the other end very quickly said, “The US Marshal will be out soon” and hung up. Needless to say the US Marshal or even a police officer never showed up.
Never give anyone your bank account information, social security number or even your legal name or birth-date over the phone. Make sure they are legit – often they sound legit because they already have quite a bit of that information. If they say they are from the IRS, give us a call before you give them any information. One resource we suggest checking out is the www.identitytheft.gov site. This is the best site we’ve have found to walk you through the process of reporting and possibly recovering from identity theft scams. And as always, we can help you if someone has tried to scam information or money from you.