An IRS impersonation scam is a class of telecommunications fraud and

scam A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their Trust (emotion), trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence ...

which targets American

taxpayers A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...

by masquerading as

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

(IRS) collection officers. The scammers operate by placing disturbing official-sounding calls to unsuspecting citizens, threatening them with arrest and frozen assets if thousands of dollars are not paid immediately, usually via

gift card A gift card, also known as a gift certificate in North America, or gift voucher or gift token in the UK, is a prepaid stored-value card, stored-value money card, usually issued by a retailer or bank, to be used as an alternative to cash for pu ...

s or money orders. According to the IRS, over 1,029,601 Americans have received threatening calls, and $29,100,604 has been reported lost to these call scams as of March 2016. The problem has been assigned to the

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is an office in the United States Federal government. It was established in January 1999 in accordance with the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA 98) ...

. Studies highlight that most victims of these scams are aged 20-29 years old and women are more affected than men. One way to decrease the risks of an individual falling victim to IRS impersonation scams is through awareness programs. The scammers often request payment in the form of

gift cards A gift card, also known as a gift certificate in North America, or gift voucher or gift token in the UK, is a prepaid stored-value money card, usually issued by a retailer or bank, to be used as an alternative to cash for purchases within a p ...

such as

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

cards, wire transfer,

MoneyGram MoneyGram International, Inc. is an American interstate and international peer-to-peer payments and electronic funds transfer, money transfer company headquartered in Dallas, Dallas, Texas. It has an operations center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, ...

, or credit card. , several people from India have been arrested for impersonating IRS employees.

The United Kingdom

Variations on this scam have targeted British taxpayers, pretending to be from

HM Revenue and Customs His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (commonly HM Revenue and Customs, or HMRC, and formerly Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) is a department of the UK government responsible for the collection of taxes, the payment of some forms of stat ...

(HMRC). Sometimes the scammers use telephone calls, sometimes SMS text messages, and sometimes emails. Versions include: *The scammers threaten a lawsuit by HMRC to recover money allegedly owed. *The scammers tell people that they are due a tax rebate, and use this to trick them into disclosing their account and personal details.

Canada

Another variation similarly targets Canadians by impersonating the

Canada Revenue Agency The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA; ; ) is the revenue service of the Government of Canada, Canadian federal government, and most Provinces and territories of Canada, provincial and territorial governments. The CRA collects Taxation in Canada, taxes, ...

and utilizing aggressive fear tactics, with at least 60,000 Canadian residents filing complaints from 2013 to 2018.

Malaysia

Variations of this scam are common in Malaysia, where they are known as 'Macau scams'. In addition to posing as tax agents, these scams can involve

fraudsters In law, fraud is intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover mone ...

posing as police officers or bank workers.

Response by companies

In response to a modus operandi by scammers where they coax victims into buying prepaid cards or gift cards for online services, companies such as

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

, along with the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) United States antitrust law, antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It ...

, have posted advisories warning customers over the illicit use of gift cards by scammers, and not to give out the code to anyone they do not know. Retailers and supermarkets have also followed suit by putting up similar warnings on prepaid and gift card sections.

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

has also warned of the dangers of these scams by advising customers not to use Amazon.com Gift Cards for payment outside of Amazon or its affiliated properties and not to use gift cards for other retailers and brands outside of the intended brand.

has also published a similar warning on their website.

References

External links