Full Notification

Over the past week, the Union City Police Department has received a number of calls from residents who have been called by someone pretending to be an IRS agent and demanding money.

If you aren’t familiar with this scam, it consists of an “agent” calling victims saying they owe money to the IRS. The “agent” demands the money be paid promptly by a pre-paid debit card or another method (cashier's check, etc.). If the victim refuses, the “agent” threatens police action. We don't know if these con artists are working in the Tri-City area--since they can place calls from anywhere, they may not even be operating within the U.S. In some cases, the scammers have disguised their phone number to appear on caller ID as the correct IRS phone number.

If anyone receives a call regarding taxes owed, take the following steps:

-If you know you owe taxes or think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1-800-829-1040. The IRS employees at that line can help you.
-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 you’ve already gotten a tax refund for this year), you can report the incident two ways:

1) Call the Treasury Inspector General at 1-800-366-4484 or
2) Visit their website at: https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml

For more information on the “IRS Telephone Scam,” visit the Internal Revenue Service website at: https://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Warns-of-Pervasive-Telephone-Scam