Have you received a phone call from someone who claims to be calling from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), demanding payment for owed taxes and threatening to call the police to have you arrested in the event that you do not pay? You are not alone. According to a recent report from NBC News, there has been a surge in consumer complaints about scammers claiming to be federal investigators. To be sure, the recent rise in complaints suggests that this new scam tactic is among “the most pervasive in history.” All too often, these scams target members of the immigrant community.
Understanding Fraudulent IRS Calls
As the NBC News report explains, these scammers often call and claim that the recipient has only a short period of time to pay owed taxes before the police get involved. Why do so many people fall for such a scam? It does not have anything to do with a person’s intelligence or ability to root out fraud. To be sure, the NBC News report suggests that “many people fear the IRS,” and as a result, they “believe [such a call] may be real.”
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