Latest Scams: Tax Season and Toll Texts

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's welcome Jim Hegerty back. The program has been a while.

(00:02):
Our friend from the Better Business Bureau, Jim, good morning.
How you doing, my friend, Great to have you back here.
And we've got tax season and I guess the scammers
love this, right. Everybody's doing things that they do just
once a year involving their money and in many cases online,
and this is a target rich environment. What are the

(00:22):
big things to look out for.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, first of all, I don't remember a year when
we haven't talked about this, so it doesn't seem to
be going away. And last year, I think scammers racked
up about six billion dollars in gains from filing fraudulent
tax returns using people's birth dates, using their Social Security
numbers to file claims in their names. So one of

(00:48):
the things that we suggest that people do is file
as early as you can to beat the scammers that
might be trying to file a fake return in your name.
I mean, obviously, you know this isn't happening into the
majority of people, but it is happening to a lot
of people. So filing early is a great way you
can protect yourself. And also, you know, with the new administration,

(01:10):
all the changes that are going on in different departments,
including the IRS, scammers are already leveraging that. You know,
one example is a new stimulus check scam that we've
become aware of, where these same scammers are calling impersonating
the IRS telling consumers they're eligible for a fourteen hundred
dollars stimulus check. And in reality, it's just efficient scheme

(01:33):
designed to gather personal information about them. And people should
be aware that the IRS does not initiate contact with
taxpayers by email, text messages. They're not going to call you,
They're not going to use social media to request personal information.
So you just need to understand that that, particularly during
this time of year, it wouldn't be unlikely for you

(01:56):
to get a bogus call from somebody claiming to be
an I R S agent.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, I'm interested in scammer filing an erroneous tax return
for me. Say they get a hold of my Social
Security number? What do they do about because you have
to file W twos with it and all of that.
How do they get around that?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
You know, they just utilize bogus information. And I think
what people need to understand is is that so much
of our information is out on the ether. I mean,
everybody's information has probably been compromised by now, so there's
no telling what information they may or may not have.
And the best way probably to protect yourself from this

(02:39):
is you can request from the i r S. It's
an identity Identity protection PIN. So it's a special number
that's given to you. It's a six digit number, and
every single time that you file your taxes, once you're
issued one of these, you have to include that. And
this is information that the scammers are very unlikely to have.

(03:00):
So if you have a PIN on file with the
i r S and one of these bogus claims come
through and they're relying on just having your social security
information to be able to get it, the i r
S is going to flag that and they're not going
to issue that claim because there is no PIN included.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
How do you get that? I wonder just email?

Speaker 2 (03:20):
You just go to go to i RS dot gov
and you can find the area in which you can
request a PIN. Now, once you do that, then you're
in for life. You're going to have to use that
every single time you saw your claims. But it's a
great way to protect yourself.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Another one that well they're not really trying to file
a bogus return for you. But these people that will
set up in a storefront of like a vacant store.
I think we just lost Jim Higgerty. You'll probably call back.
But the ghost preparers where they'll find a vacant storefront
and they'll promise you come to me and I'll get

(03:58):
you a fast refund and a large refund, and then
they basically vanish. So I would think that got Jim
Hegerty back here. Jim, we were just talking about the ghost.
The ghost the ghosting tax preparers where they claim they'll

(04:20):
get you a quick, big refund and then they disappear.
Is that relatively Uh? Is that something you see every year? Two?

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes? Absolutely, man. So I think people, you know, Gary,
they just need to be they just need to be
so cautious right now. I mean just using common sense,
you know, taking a deep breath whenever you're offered any
kind of an opportunity and just knowing that you know
the only way that you're going to be dealing with
the I R. S is through the mail and through

(04:49):
the normal way that they've always connected with people.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
On another matter, just before we let you go, Jim,
have you seen this one where now they're now people
are getting text saying that they owe a toll. They
got a delinquent toll from a I don't know who,
supposedly you were. You went through a toll booth and
you didn't pay your That's a big one right now.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, So the bottom line is is that you know,
obviously there's a jurisdiction that's claiming you owe this toll.
I mean, you do not pay that toll until you've
taken time to get offline and call whoever that jurisdiction
is and confirm that it is true. I know that
sometimes when people rent cars or they're traveling, you know,

(05:36):
they do get a little bit confused. So there could
be situations where they do actually owe tolls and they
need to pay them, but don't pay anything. Don't do anything,
don't provide any information, no credit card information, no checking
account information, until you have spoken to someone from who,
from whatever the entity is that's claiming you owe them money.

(05:57):
So take some time, make some calls, save yourself some
pretty big headaches, amen.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Jim Hagerty. Always a pleasure, Thank you, my friend.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Hey, talk to you, Geary.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
There we go