The Brentwood Police Department has received reports from citizens regarding calls impersonating IRS collection agents.
The phone calls have been from a 202 area code, which is Washington DC. The caller identifies themselves as an IRS collection agent working with the FBI. The caller is very persistent stating that they are calling regarding unpaid taxes and to avoid potential prosecution the debt needs to be settled immediately.
If you receive such a call, keep in mind you would have already received an official collection notice from the IRS if you had pending overdue tax issues. Do not provide the caller with any of your personal information, such as Social Security numbers, bank account numbers or debit card numbers. Simply hang up on the person.
Police Departments throughout the nation receive an influx of fraud scams and mail theft reports. Take extra caution with your outgoing and received mail during this time. Many sensitive documents sent from employers, investments and loans contain personal information that identity thieves love to get their hands on.
If you see suspicious or unfamiliar subjects and vehicles in your neighbor hoods, please call the police at 925-778-2441.
4 comments
I’ve now had 3 calls from someone claiming to be IRS agents. It’s tiresome…
If you have VOIP phone service from AT&T or Comcast, you can sign up for NoMoRobo (nomorobo.com); it requires changing a setting on the AT&T or Comcast website, but it’s easy. There are other carriers too, but those 2 are the 800lb gorillas. That will get rid of most of the scam calls.
We also bought a Panasonic answering machine with 4 handsets from Costco. The Panasonic will let you block up to 250 numbers. I’m sure other brands will let you do the same thing and there are separate boxes you can hook up too.
If I don’t recognize a calling number I usually won’t answer. If they don’t leave a message, it’s the blocker for them.
We’re down to about 1 call a week that makes it thru that shouldn’t. I always report those numbers to NoMoRobo so they can add them.
We had three in one day last week. We have a good phone call blocker from Radio Shack. We never answer our land line. All it is for is the alarm.
We’ve gotten these calls too. We have caller ID, and don’t pick up calls from unknown numbers. Through AT&T u-verse, you get 20 free blocked numbers (at a time). Needless to say, we added this to our list.
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