IRS Phone Scam hits Upton

Over the past few months the Internal Revenue Service has been warning consumers about a phone scam targeting taxpayers, including recent immigrants, throughout the country.

This scam has recently hit the Upton area. This month I received three telephone messages from an automated voice claiming they were the IRS and that the call was of an urgent matter. To be honest I didn’t listen to the rest of the message before I hit delete. I figured if the IRS wanted me they would send some something in the mail or would have a real person call me and would not leave a genetic sounding scam type automated voice mail.

It appears I was not the only person in Upton who was being targeted.

The Upton Police Department is reporting they received several calls from residents claiming they were the target of an IRS scam in July. According to the Upton Police victims are told they owe money to the IRS and it must be paid promptly through a pre-loaded debit card or wire transfer. If the victim refuses to cooperate, they are then threatened with arrest, deportation or suspension of a business or driver’s license. In many cases, the caller becomes hostile and insulting.

The Upton Police Department is advising residents if they receive such call they can report the call and confirm the call they received was a scam by calling the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration @ 800-366-4484.

This is a scary scam. According to the BBB “the fake IRS agents have been known to use a computer program to make the real IRS phone number appear on caller ID, quote false badge numbers, and use call centers that use background noise to seem legitimate. These scammers may also have the last four digits of a person’s Social Security number among other personal information. Victims and targets of this scam have also reported receiving calls from people claiming to be the police department or DMV after refusing to pay.”  The call I received had a fake IRS number show on my caller ID log.