Another trick in IRS phone scam

Lansdale police said an area senior citizen was targeted by a call that appeared to come from the Lansdale Police Department

In what appears to be a new wrinkle to the long-prevalent IRS telephone scam, Lansdale police warned Wednesday that scam perpetrators are using electronic means to create the appearance of legitimacy by making a local police department’s phone number appear on a potential victim’s caller ID screen.

Lt. Alex Kromdyk said that on Monday, a senior citizen in Towamencin reported to Lansdale police that on Monday, June 26th, a male caller with a heavy foreign accent claimed to be an IRS agent and said the resident owed nearly $4,000 in back taxes.

The resident told Lansdale police that the call “appeared official” and that the caller threatened to have a “sheriff” from the Lansdale Police Department come to their house and arrest them if they didn’t immediately pay up, Kromdyk said.

After hanging up, the resident got another call from a male who claimed that they were a sheriff, and the resident’s caller ID showed the call coming from a phone number that is actually registered to the Lansdale Police Department; still, the resident did not send the scammers any money, Kromdyk said.

The IRS scam has targeted area residents, particularly

the elderly, for years, and, according to local, state and federal authorities, it’s claimed scores of victims to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

As Kromdyk and other law enforcement officials have said in urging people not to fall for the scam, the IRS will never call you by phone about any owed taxes, nor will they ever ask you to pay money to them using Western Union wire transfers or Green Dot cards — two of scammers’ most favored means of payment.

Kromdyk added Wednesday that “if you have doubts as to whether you are speaking to a legitimate law enforcement officer/agent by phone, obtain their name/badge number and call their department using the phone number found through your own research” to determine if they are for real.

“Please educate your relatives/friends, especially those that are elderly, to these scams, as many people have lost their life savings to them,” Kromdyk said.