Town police are warning local residents about a series of ongoing scams conducted by criminals generally via telephone calls and sometimes through interactions on the Internet.

Police Sergeant Steven Santucci said that one of these scams which has been an ongoing problem nationwide involves an aggressive telephone caller who falsely tells the person receiving the call that he is a US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent who requires the immediate payment of an outstanding tax debt.

The fraudulent caller requires that the victim pay the debt by preloaded debit card or by wire transfer. The caller often threatens that the victim will be arrested, deported, or lose their driver’s license if the debt is not paid immediately, according to Sgt Santucci.

The sergeant explained that some of the perpetrators have electronically masked the telephone numbers from which they are calling so that it appears that the calls are originating from the IRS.

In some cases, the callers have provided the victims with the victims’ correct social security numbers and their correct tax-filing status.

Sgt Santucci stressed that the IRS will not contact people by telephone in seeking to collect a tax debt, but will handle such matters through the US Mail.

Town police have received numerous complaints and inquiries about what has become known as the “IRS telephone scam,” he said.

People who receive such telephone calls are urged to not provide the caller with any personal information and not to send them any money, Sgt Santucci stressed.

People who receive such phone calls should contact the IRS at 800-829-1040 if they have any questions about whether they owe any back taxes.

People who know that they do not owe any back taxes should report the scam to the US Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration at 800-366-4484.

People who have been targeted by the scam should contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on the Internet at ftc.gov and use its service known as FTC Complaint Assistant, inserting the term “IRS telephone scam” in their comments.

Information on protecting oneself against IRS-related scams is available on the IRS webpage at irs.gov.

Additional Details

Sergeant Aaron Bahamonde said that of the various electronic scams that local residents report to police, about 90 percent of the scams are telephone-based, with the remainder occurring on the Internet.

Sgt Bahamonde estimated that this calendar year, police have received five complaints about the IRS telephone scam. About 20 such complaints have been received during the past several years, he said.

Although all types of people fall victim to telephone-based scams, it appears that elderly people are most often the victims of such ruses, he said.

In the various electronic scams perpetrated against residents, the victims have lost sums ranging from about $500 to about $3,000, he said.

“We get many complaints” about electronic scams, he said. “It keeps happening… We continue to get calls,” he said.

People should closely guard their social security numbers and not provide them to callers, he said.

Police frequently deal with residents reporting cases of identity theft in which criminals seek to electronically assume the person’s identity to steal from them.

Internet-based crimes are difficult crimes for police to pursue, the sergeant noted, due to the multiple jurisdictions involved in such situations.

Utilities Scam With Green Dot Cards

Also, recently police warned the public about another scam. Criminals who falsely claim to work for the Connecticut Light & Power Company, Yankee Gas, or some other utility company have telephoned local businesses, telling them that their service will be shut off due to unpaid bills.

The callers tell those business owners to purchase Green Dot cards for payment. Green Dot cards, which are widely sold, are legitimate, reloadable debit cards. Use of Green Dot cards allows the scammers to avoid needing to have the money wired to them by victims, according to police.

In the scam, the victim loads the Green Dot card with the requested amount of money and then allows the scammers access to the Green Dot card’s account number, police said. The scammers then quickly drain the account in a transaction which is completely anonymous and untraceable. A local business recently was bilked out of more than $900 through a Green Dot utility scam, police have said.