The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office continues to receive reports from citizens regarding scams by email, text messaging, social media or by telephone from a person claiming to be from the IRS. The IRS has some great information available on how to protect your personal information, report a scam, and what to do if your information is compromised.
What is phishing?
Phishing is a scam typically carried out through unsolicited email and/or websites that pose as legitimate sites and lure unsuspecting victims to provide personal and financial information.
The Internal Revenue Service would like you to know:
The IRS doesn't initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text messages or social media channels to request personal or financial information. This includes requests for PIN numbers, passwords or similar access information for credit cards, banks or other financial accounts.
Report all unsolicited email claiming to be from the IRS or an IRS-related function tophishing@irs.gov. Recent scams have used the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) to attract potential victims. Also, if you've experienced any monetary losses due to an IRS-related incident, please report it to the Treasury Inspector General Administration (TIGTA) and file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) through their Complaint Assistant to make the information available to investigators.
For more information on what to do if you receive a suspicious IRS-related communication online or by phone VISIT http://www.irs.gov/uac/Report-Phishing
To report an IRS impersonation scam go to:
http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml and complete the online report form.
Information obtained from www.irs.gov
