March 15-April 15: 13th annual Jubilee Festival of the Arts (Thibodaux)
March 1, 2011
Elder abuse … old enough to know better
March 3, 2011The Internal Revenue Service is telling taxpayers to beware of scam artists posing as federal tax collectors with the intention of robbing personal finance information and committing identity theft.
“The IRS receives thousands of reports each year from taxpayers who receive suspicious e-mail, phone calls, faxes, or notices claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service,” said IRS New Orleans office media relations agent Dee Stepter. “The goal of these scams – known as phishing – is to trick you into revealing personal financial information.”
Scammers use the information they are able to secure – including Social Security numbers, bank account data and credit card numbers – leaving victims with the bills, ruined credit and exposure to being repeatedly victimized.
Stepter said that if IRS agents were to contact a taxpayer directly they would never ask for personal or financial information, such as a PIN or account password.
The IRS does not initiate communication with taxpayers through e-mail. Stepter said that if a person does receive such e-mail that person should not reply to the message, open any attachments, or click on links. Attachments, she said may contain codes and that can infect one’s computer.
“The official IRS website is http://www.irs.gov,” Stepter said. “Do not be confused or mislead by sites claiming to be the IRS but ending in .com or other designations instead of .gov.”
In April 2009, the IRS reportedly caught 3,030 phishing cases. That number had dropped 48 percent by April 2010, but officials are not sure if it is because of better enforcement, public awareness, or scammers simply not being caught.
Stepter said that anyone who receives a suspicious telephone, fax or letter from sources claiming to represent the IRS, the real IRS can be contacted at 1-800-829-1040 to check if the agency had truly attempted to make contact.
