Phone Scam

We have frequent flyer miles, cash back rewards and punch cards that reward us for being a good customer. However, there is no reward for being a good citizen and paying your taxes.

The Craig, Colorado Police are warning about a phone scam which has hit their area. Taxpayers have been contacted by representatives of the “Government Tax Refund Service” who are ready to issue a special “faithful taxpayer reward” to the victims. The amount is in the thousands of dollars. All the taxpayer has to do is to pay a 10% service charge. The fee is to be wired or pre-paid into a Green Dot card. Once the money has been received, the victims will receive all their reward.

Sorry folks, there is no reward for paying your taxes. The IRS doesn’t initiate contact with taxpayers by phone. Let’s face it, if there was a special IRS program paying money to taxpayers, there would be a lot of media coverage, there wouldn’t be a service change and there would be a ton of paperwork to verify eligibility.

It doesn’t matter if you are contacted by phone, email or social media, be very careful of a scam to take your money or to get your personal information. The IRS only initiates contact by mail. You can read up on these scams and report them to the IRS. They have a dedicated webpage with all the information.

Thanks to Darrin T. Mish for the heads up on this scam.

McIntire Tax Center - on Facebook - on Google+ - or Twitter @ mactax.

Comments

[Michael Dwells]

Got a call like that, too. Said I qualified to get tax refund from the government because I paid on time. I just said, "I'm not interested" and reported the call to www.callercenter.com to raise a warning.

I'm amazed at how persistent these scammers are.