04/27/15 - The Fullerton Police Department advises the public that if someone calls or leaves a message on your answering machine stating you owe taxes, contact the IRS directly. In the instances reported to the Fullerton Police Department, calls were received by unknown suspect(s) pretending to be from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The call is answered and the caller threatens you with arrest, deportation, etc. if you do not pay the tax immediately.

The caller then instructs you to obtain a prepaid credit card and give them the card number from the front of the card and the code from the back of the card. If you refuse most times another person will call you purporting to be from a local law enforcement agency threatening to arrest you if you do not pay. The caller ID number is most often “spoofed” so that it shows the number for the law enforcement agency.

Facts related to this scam

• If you provide the numbers for the prepaid credit card then the person can access the funds anywhere in the world.
• The IRS always sends taxpayers written notification of any tax due via the US mail.
• The IRS will never ask for credit card, debit card or prepaid card information over the telephone.
• Municipal police agencies do not work in conjunction with the IRS for tax collection purposes.

What you can do if you get one of these telephone calls:

• Do not call them back or hang up if you are talking to them.
• If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1-800-829-1040. The IRS employees at that line can help you with a payment issue, if there really is such an issue.
• If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes (for example, you've never received a bill or the caller made some bogus threats as described above), then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1-800-366-4484. 
• If you’ve been targeted by this scam, you should also contact the Federal Trade Commission and use their “FTC Complaint Assistant” at www.FTC.gov. Please add "IRS Telephone Scam" to the comments of your complaint. </li>
• Visit the IRS website for further information at www.irs.gov and select Tax Scams, then telephone scams or follow this link: http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Reiterates-Warning-of-Pervasive-Telephone-Scam .