OC Sheriff’s Office warns about IRS Scams

The Oconee County Sheriff’s Office continues to warn citizens not to fall prey to various types of scams, including those purporting to be from the Internal Revenue Service, says Oconee County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Jimmy Watt. “I have received in my office a couple of calls in the last few days from citizens who said they received calls from someone claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service and demanding payment for back taxes owed or those individuals would be arrested. Fortunately, these citizens did not provide any personal information or money to these scammers. We have issued multiple press releases in the past three years concerning various types of scams. However, because scammers never stop working 24/7, the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office feels it is important to be proactive and continue to provide some educational tips to our citizens to help them avoid being taken advantage of. Many of these scammers work outside of Oconee County, so prosecution and/or recovery of assets lost can be virtually impossible, so we feel that our educational efforts can be the most effective way to combat this issue.” Here are some tips to avoid being taken advantage of by scammers. If the Internal Revenue Service happens to contact you concerning a tax question, they will contact you by mail instead of calling you directly. Also, if someone claims to be calling from the I.R.S. and states that you owe back taxes, hang up and call your tax preparer and/or the Internal Revenue Service to check the validity of the claims as you have the right to appeal. One sure sign of a scam is an individual asking for payment via a prepaid card. If anyone is able to get the PIN numbers from those cards and the money is taken before anyone realizes it is a scam, it is almost virtually impossible to retrieve the money. In addition, scammers love to use legitimate businesses, such as Western Union or Money Gram, because of its quickness and availability. Law enforcement officers do have the right to arrest individuals with outstanding warrants but officers will not contact anyone stating that arrest warrants will be recalled if someone pays a fine over the phone, in fact, officers do not handle money transactions at all. All fines are taken care of on the judicial level in courts and are not handled by officers. If you receive these calls in the future, we encourage you to save all phone numbers and information if you can. Do not give out personal or financial information and do not put any money on prepaid cards. If you desire to, you can contact your local law enforcement agency and request to speak to or see an officer to report what has happened and file a case report so an investigation can begin, regardless of the outcome and even if property was not lost. The Sheriff’s Office non-emergency number is 864-638-4111. Most legitimate businesses will not require payment to be made using prepaid cards. If a company or business contacts you and says that payment is due and can be made using a pre-paid card, hang up the phone and contact that company or business to inquire about the situation. The Oconee County Sheriff’s Office always recommends never giving out personal information over the telephone as companies and businesses you deal with have your personal information. If an offer sounds too good to be true, more than likely it is. If you feel uncomfortable in anyway with an offer you receive or you see some red flags, don’t respond in any way whatsoever or ignore it and don’t respond. Scammers tend to target seniors more than any other age groups based on financial stability and the fact seniors tend to be a more trusting generation. Anyone, however, can be the target of scams. Scammers will in many cases use out of country numbers, such as with the 876 area code with individuals on the line having a foreign accent. Many times, it is difficult but not impossible for the Sheriff’s Office to prosecute cases and apprehend those involved in which someone calls from out of the country and not from inside Oconee County itself to perpetrate the scam. Never give out any personal information, such as social security numbers, bank account numbers, credit or debit card numbers, driver’s license numbers, or birthdates to anyone who may ask you for that information over the phone or through regular mail or e-mail. Institutions should not ask for your personal information, such as social security numbers and routing and transit numbers, because your personal bank, for example, should have that information. If an individual calls from a bank, for example, and says, they need to verify your social security number, you should ask for their name and operating number and then call the bank yourself to see if it is legitimate. The bigger banks will normally recognize the number that you call from and they will then ask you to verify who you are by the last four digits of your social security number or your mailing address or zip code. Another scamming technique is for individuals to agree to buy something on a website, such as Craig’s List, and then receive a check in the mail. They are asked to deposit the money, keep some of it and then send the rest to another address, for example. In many cases, the checks are no good and the person who deposited the check is responsible to cover the amount of the insufficient funds.