Rural Holland couple victim of telephone scam

ByFree Press Staff Reading Time: 3 minutes

Holland — Deputies were notified that a couple had been scammed by an individual purporting to be their own grandson Monday morning.

According to authorities, an individual pretending to be the couple’s grandson contacted them for help. They were told their grandson had been jailed in Mexico City on drug charges and needed $1,188 to bond out of a jail. The scammer had enough personal information to convince the couple that it was in fact their grandson.

Believing their grandson needed help, they wired the money to the man pretending to be their grandson. Afterwards, they were contacted by the man pretending to be their grandson and he had them speak to another man purporting to be the son’s attorney. The attorney asked for an additional $1,000 for his fees.

At this point, the couple realized they were being scammed and contacted a family member to confirm the grandson was in fact okay.

According to the sheriff’s department, the scammers may have some personal information about their potential victims and they can be very convincing. The best thing to do is to hang up the phone immediately and never give out any personal or bank account information.

In another telephone scam today, a Dubois County resident reported she was contacted on her cellphone by a person pretending to be from the IRS.

They stated that her son owes back taxes and that the sheriff’s department would be coming to her residence to arrest him on a tax warrant.

According to the sheriff’s department, an IRS agent will not contact a person by phone in reference to back taxes being owed and the sheriff’s department does not go to a person’s house to make arrests for tax warrants.

Here is more information from the IRS on these types of calls.

These callers may demand money or may say you have a refund due and try to trick you into sharing private information. These con artists can sound convincing when they call. They may know a lot about you, and they usually alter the caller ID to make it look like the IRS is calling. They use fake names and bogus IRS identification badge numbers. If you don’t answer, they often leave an “urgent” callback request.

“These telephone scams are being seen in every part of the country, and we urge people not to be deceived by these threatening phone calls,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said. “We have formal processes in place for people with tax issues. The IRS respects taxpayer rights, and these angry, shake-down calls are not how we do business.”

The IRS reminds people that they can know pretty easily when a supposed IRS caller is a fake. Here are five things the scammers often do but the IRS will not do. Any one of these five things is a tell-tale sign of a scam. The IRS will never:

  1. Call to demand immediate payment, nor will we call about taxes owed without first having mailed you a bill..
  2. Demand that you pay taxes without giving you the opportunity to question or appeal the amount they say you owe.
  3. Require you to use a specific payment method for your taxes, such as a prepaid debit card.
  4. Ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone.
  5. Threaten to bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.

If you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS and asking for money, here’s what you should do:

  • If you know you owe taxes or think you might owe, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. The IRS workers can help you with a payment issue.
  • If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to believe that you do, report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) at 1.800.366.4484 or atwww.tigta.gov.
  • You can file a complaint using the FTC Complaint Assistant; choose “Other” and then “Imposter Scams.” If the complaint involves someone impersonating the IRS, include the words “IRS Telephone Scam” in the notes.

Remember, too, the IRS does not use unsolicited email, text messages or any social media to discuss your personal tax issue. For more information on reporting tax scams, go to http://www.irs.gov and type “scam” in the search box.

Additional information about tax scams are available on IRS social media sites, including YouTubeand Tumblr where people can search “scam” to find all the scam-related posts.

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