Lakewood residents, as well as many other New Jersey residents, are continuing to receive scam calls from those claiming to be the IRS.
The New Jersey State Police and other organizations have again issued warning to ensure homeowners don’t fall for the scam, which has left numerous victims shelling out lots of money in fear of imprisonment or worse.
The following are two messages TLS received over the past few days.
“I just got a call from 716-206-3218 claiming they’re the IRS and I should call back before the end of the day at 877-968-3413 and gave me a reference number. According to Google, it’s a scam.”
The second reader sent the following to TLS:
“I just received a phone call this morning from an apparent IRS impersonator from the following phone# 585-310-3834. The person identified themselves as Ben Smith from the IRS criminal investigation division. As soon I notified him that our call is being recorded, and started to question him, he became angry and hung up the phone. I reported the number to Treasury Inspector General, and called them back to notify them of the potential fraud. Once again they hung up the phone on me.”
The IRS has released several tips on identifying such scams.
[TLS-85/TLS-CCP]
I don’t answer any calls I don’t recognize….None. Let it go to Voice Mail, if it’s important they’ll leave a message. It rarely is.