IRS impersonation scams involve scammers targeting American taxpayers by pretending to be Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection officers. The scammers operate by placing disturbing official-sounding calls to unsuspecting citizens, threatening them with arrest and frozen assets if thousands of dollars are not paid immediately, usually via gift cards or money orders. According to the IRS, over 1,029,601 Americans have received threatening calls, and $29,100,604 has been reported lost to these call scams as of March, 2016. The problem has been assigned to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The scammers often request payment in the form of gift cards such as Google Play or iTunes cards, wire transfer, MoneyGram, or credit card. As of September 2017, several people from India have been arrested for impersonating IRS employees.
IRS impersonation scams involve scammers targeting American taxpayers by pretending to be Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection officers. The scammers operate by placing disturbing official-sounding calls to unsuspecting citizens, threatening them with arrest and frozen assets if thousands of dollars are not paid immediately, usually via gift cards or money orders. According to the IRS, over 1,029,601 Americans have received threatening calls, and $29,100,604 has been reported lost to these call scams as of March, 2016. The problem has been assigned to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.