PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Oregonians were taken for at least $500,000 in 2016 after falling for increasingly sophisticated IRS scams.
The fraudsters pretend to be IRS agents and demand people hand over money immediately or risk criminal prosecution or jail time.
“Whenever identities are stolen, about 70% of those identities end up on some sort of fraudulent tax return” — IRS agent Darrell Waldon
“We have been seeing a lot of phone scams in the Pacific Northwest,” Special Agent in Charge Darrell J. Waldon told KOIN 6 News. “These people have gotten have increasingly sophisticated. There are call centers throughout the world where people are trained to do this type of thing.”
Cold call scams are nothing new for the IRS, but now the callers are becoming more aggressive.
“The interesting thing is they appear to be very legitimate because they read out a badge number that is supposed to be an IRS badge number and they know a lot about the taxpayer, which is a little scary.”
Waldon — who works out of the Seattle Field Office for the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and supervises criminal investigation in Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska. — admits being contacted by the IRS can be intimating.
“Nobody really enjoys interacting with the IRS,” Waldon said. “People want to see this go away as quickly as possible and people have fallen victim to this scam.”
In Washington, an estimated 250,000 identities have been stolen as a result of IRS scams.
“Whenever identities are stolen, about 70% of those identities end up on some sort of fraudulent tax return,” according to Waldon.
Waldon cautions the IRS will never make first contact with someone via phone call or email. He said there will always be a formal letter. It will be sent to someone’s full legal name and mailed to their last known address.
He stresses the importance of making sure people protect their personal information to avoid ID theft.
– Report IRS impersonation scams
– IRS scam alerts
– IRS Criminal Investigation
“It can turn your life upside down for some time,” Waldon said.
Waldon said the IRS will never ask someone to wire or transfer money through services like Western Union or online apps.
Some of the most damaging scams come through what’s called email “phishing.”
A phishing email typically directs someone to reply, or takes them to a website, and provide their bank, credit card, and/or tax information. Many times the scams will urge people to give up sensitive data such as passwords and Social Security numbers. In some cases websites for financial institutions and government agencies have been “spoofed.” It’s important that people be careful about clicking links and make sure that the browser is updated with the latest security patch and that they know they’re on an authentic website.
Waldon said fraudsters can be local, but they could also have an international nexus.
“It involves both people domestically and counties all around the world. It’s a very sophisticated operation.”
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