The Internal Revenue Service is warning residents to be careful of scams related to the latest round of stimulus checks, also known as economic impact payments.
The scams take a variety of forms including phishing e-mails, text messages and robocalls. Candace Kowal is the assistant special agent in charge for criminal investigations at the IRS’ Chicago field office. She said scammers may also try to impersonate IRS employees over the phone.
“Scammers are using spoofing or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) -- a way of changing the telephone numbers that show up on caller ID. So even though they’ve gone to those lengths in using that sophisticated software to make it appear as though they are legitimate, those are not legitimate calls. The IRS will not reach out to taxpayers in this way.”
She said scammers could also act agressively.
“We don’t threaten them with jail time or with other legal actions. We don’t make those aggressive types of phone calls. So if you’re receiving a telephone call from someone who claims to be from the IRS and they’re making threats toward you, it is not us. We need you to just hang up and report that.”
Kowal says to report phishing attempts to phishing@irs.gov. Theft or fraud related to stimulus payments can be reported to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
The IRS also enourages anyone to report COVID-19 related financial scams to the National Center for Disaster Fraud, either via the Justice Department website or their hotline.