IRS phone scammers duping residents

Police warning about bogus calls demanding money, threatening litigation

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When an elderly Lido Beach resident received a phone call last week from someone claiming to be a representative of the Internal Revenue Service, she initially thought it was a legitimate call. After all, the man was calling from a 202 area code in Washington, D.C. “It had to be official, right?” the woman thought.

“He sounded professional,” she recalled, declining to give her name but adding that the man spoke with what she believed was an Indian accent. “He said he was calling from the electronic federal tax payment system.”

But she quickly grew concerned when the man, who identified himself as Paul Jason, said she owed the IRS more than $2,000 and that she had attempted to defraud the agency, threatened her with legal action and said she could face jail time. Her heart began racing. The three- to four-minute call was “really scary,” she said.

“I panicked,” she added. “He was very specific about it. He said it was from 2008 to 2013, and that they were filing a lawsuit against me.”

Specifically, she was told that she owed $2,867.76, based on what the caller described as a number of miscalculations and errors. The woman asked if she could pay by check or credit card. Though she was given a phone number and a website to visit, www.pipo.com, she said she wasn’t able to make a traditional payment.

“That’s the thing that was unclear,” she said. “I think they were looking to come to my house and collect the cash from me.”

She knew for sure that something wasn’t right when the caller referred to her as a Long Beach resident. “When they said Long Beach, I knew it wasn’t the IRS, because they would know that it’s in fact Lido Beach,” she said. “I think I finally said, ‘I’m going to call my lawyer.’”

She actually called her accountant, and was told that six other people had reported receiving similar solicitations, and that it was indeed a scam. Then she called the police.

“My next-door neighbor received a similar call, and they just hung up,” she said. “I have a feeling they’re preying on the elderly, and I do want people to be aware of the scam. I can’t tell you how upsetting it was.”

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