Better Business Bureau (BBB)<\/a> serving Alaska, Oregon and Western Washington has received several reports of IRS impersonators, according to a BBB media release.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nKent Police sent out a notice in May about the scam calls.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Internal Revenue Service issued the initial alert in February, as did the Federal Trade Commission. Callers pretend to be from the IRS in hopes of stealing money or identities. Here are some examples of how the scammers attempt to swindle taxpayers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Victims are told they owe money to the IRS or are entitled to a huge refund.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Victims are threatened with arrest or license revocation if they don\u2019t pay.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 The imposters may call back saying they\u2019re from the local police department or motor vehicle division to give validity to the scam.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
BBB wants Washingtonians to be aware of the characteristics of a tax scam.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 IRS imposters use fake names and badge numbers. They generally use common names and surnames to identify themselves.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Scammers may be able to recite the last four digits of a victim\u2019s Social Security Number.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Scammers \u201cspoof\u201d or imitate the IRS toll-free number on caller ID to make it appear the IRS is calling.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Scammers sometimes send bogus IRS emails to victims to support their calls.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Victims may hear background noise of other calls being conducted to mimic a call site.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The IRS will not initiate contact about a tax return processing problem over the phone or by email. The IRS will always send taxpayers a written notification of any taxes due via the U.S. Postal Service.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Washingtonians who receive a call from someone claiming to be with the IRS should hang up and call the IRS at (800) 829-1040. An official representative will address any concerns.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Better Business Bureau (BBB) serving Alaska, Oregon and Western Washington has received several reports of IRS impersonators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5171"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}