STIMULUS CHECKS SCAMS
The IRS has issued a statement urging taxpayers to keep on the lookout and exercise extra caution in response to a recent surge of fraudulent IRS calls and email phishing attempts related to these payments, often referring to them as “stimulus checks”.
The IRS has issued a warning that scammers may:
- Emphasize the words “stimulus check” or “stimulus payment” while seeking personal financial information. For reference, the official term is “economic impact payment”.
- Ask the taxpayer to sign over their economic impact payment check to them.
- Ask by phone, email, text or social media for verification of personal and/or banking information, saying that the information is needed to receive or speed up their economic impact payment.
- Suggest that they can get a tax refund or economic impact payment faster by working on the
- taxpayer’s behalf. These scams could be conducted by social media of even in person.
- Mail the taxpayer a bogus check, perhaps an odd amount, then tell the taxpayer to call a number or verify information online in order to cash it.