The New Jersey Department of Homeland Security is warning parents who qualified for the expanded Child Tax Credit are now being targeted by scammers. 

“Individuals are receiving phone calls, text messages and emails from scammers purporting to be from the IRS,” said Mike Geraghty, the director of cybersecurity at the NJ Department of Homeland Security.

In many of those cases, the scammers tell unwitting victims to verify their personal information on a fraudulent website that collects their names and social security numbers.

In other cases, the scammers say that they could expedite the Child Tax Credit payments and instead get parents a lump sum, or tell their victims that they were overpaid and have to send back some of the money they received from the government.

The key point to remember is this: the IRS will never contact you by phone or email. All correspondence with the IRS happens through snail mail and the United States Post Office.

If you get a call from someone purporting to be from the IRS, simply hang up.