Beware of This IRS Scam!

In my opinion, people who try to scam the public should have the book thrown at them!  I absolutely hate hearing stories of the elderly falling for a phone scam!  Or, if you remember the flood of 2011, there were people going around and trying to scam people who were flooded out of their homes.  The penalties should be more severe if they are caught!

There is a new IRS scam that might be coming our way that you should be warned about!  Here is the story from CNN:

As tax day nears, be advised that if an Internal Revenue Service agent calls you up threatening dire consequences if unpaid taxes aren't settled immediately, hang up! That's not the IRS -- it's a scam. Despite their nefarious reputation -- the IRS never calls and threatens anyone over the phone. Tax officials say that in the "largest scam of its kind that we have ever seen."

CNN reports that people have been bilked out of at least $1 million by the phony agents. The scammers order victims to pay up through a debit card or wire transfer, threatening them with arrest, deportation, or loss of a business or driver's license if they don't comply. If you truly owe the IRS money, the agency says it first reaches out through the mail and never demands immediate payment.

Halah Touryalai at Forbes was nearly taken in by the scam. She says a caller from the Washington, DC, area warned her that she had tried to "defraud the IRS, and that the government was now taking legal action against me including issuing a warrant for my arrest within the next hour." The fake agent, who became hostile when she asked how she could confirm his identity, told her that she had to pay $4,900 to cancel the warrant -- and the payment had to be made by wire transfer because her bank accounts had already been frozen. Tourvalai says she was nearly scared enough to pay up, but she discovered it was a scam after reading a page on the IRS website. (CNN)

If this happens to you, call the authorities right away!