Bay Ridge pols warn: Beware of phone scammers
Victims are getting calls from crooks claiming to be IRS agents
You’re sitting at home watching “Dancing with the Stars” on ABC and you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who tells you that you owe a fortune in back taxes and that if you don’t pay up immediately, a warrant will be issued for your arrest.
The IRS agent also offers a “helpful” hint. You can pay your back taxes by using a reloadable debit card that can be purchased in most convenience stores. You are instructed to purchase a card, put money on it and then call the agent back and read the card number and the card’s PIN number over the phone.
What do you do? The answer, according to state Sen. Marty Golden and Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis, is to call the police. That’s no IRS agent on the phone. It’s a scam artist.
Golden (R-C-Bay Ridge-Southwest Brooklyn) and Malliotakis (R-C-Bay Ridge-Staten Island) are urging their constituents to remain vigilant against what they are calling an “evolving threat” of telephone scams.