Hundreds of North Carolinians are fielding phone calls from scammers posing as agents of the US Department of the Treasury. The scammers claim to be calling about a federal criminal matter and threaten that you will be indicted by a grand jury and have to appear before a judge if you fail to respond.
These aggressive scammers claim that you have unpaid federal taxes and will go to jail if you don’t pay them right away by purchasing a reloadable debit card such as GreenDot MoneyPak cards. This scam is similar to one in which the con artists pretend to be IRS agents.
Phone calls from someone claiming to be with Treasury or the IRS are usually phony. Remember, federal agents rarely pick up the phone to call you. They prefer to communicate by letter, which provides a paper trail that is helpful in documenting their work, and they will never demand that you pay them immediately by reloadable debit card.
Our office has received more than 700 reports of this scam in recent days. Additional reports can be helpful to federal and international law enforcement looking into the calls, which we believe are made from overseas.
If you spot this scam, report it to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division by calling 1-877-5-NO-SCAM or filing a complaint online at www.ncdoj.gov.
This message brought to you on behalf of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.