The IRS Scam has made its way back to northeast Alabama and northwest Georgia and today they targeted the wrong person after contacting WEIS Radio General Manager Jerry Baker on his cell phone.
The caller told Jerry that he was with the IRS in Washington D.C. and when Jerry told him he was with the local media and wanted to record the conversation for a spot on the local news, he immediately hung up.
We called back a second time and again they hung up.
We called back a third time and spoke to a male individual who spoke less than perfect English and asked him if he was aware that what he was doing was against the law? his answer Yes, we at that point ask him if he had ever heard of the FBI and he hung up.
The people trying to run the scam are persistent, but that’s about it – they’re lazy, have zero imagination and are probably unpopular even at family reunions.
We based those first two observations on the fact they didn’t even attempt to change up the scam or update it in any way – they are still trying to scare people into sending them money or give them sensitive information such as credit debit card numbers, account numbers and so on by telling the person they are calling from Internal Revenue Headquarters and unless you pay your past due tax bill, you’ll be arrested.
Fact #1 – you’re not going to be arrested, because Fact #2, they’re NOT with the IRS.
The IRS doesn’t contact you by phone; if you do have an issue with previous tax returns you will be notified by U.S. Mail; and although they may be intimidating, real IRS representatives will not threaten you with arrest – it just doesn’t work that way.
We wrote down one of the numbers being used in the scam, 1-306-343-9907, and when we dialed it, it came up as being out-of-order or disconnected.
It’s NOT IRS Headquarters. Period.
So, if you receive one of these calls, simply hang up and forget about it.
And, by the way, the third observation we made about scammers being horrible people that no one likes…we just threw that in for good measure ’cause they deserve it.
