IRS phone scam targets Southern Coloradans
El Paso County authorities are issuing a warning about a popular scam during tax season.
Residents are receiving calls threatening jail time and fines if they don’t pay money to the IRS.
However, these calls are not coming from the IRS; they’re coming from scammers.
Karla Plonowski says she’s received six of the calls in the past two days and she’s fed up with it.
“Two were males who called (initially). The first was a heavily accented voice… then I received a call from another male, non accented voice, then it was a female,” explained Plonowski.
Though the voices were different, the messages were similar.
“We’ve been trying to reach you. This is the last time we’ll contact you, but you owe money and it’s from the IRS,” Plonowski said.
She isn’t the only one receiving these calls in Southern Colorado.
“We do see a lot of scams, people claiming to be the IRS, saying that they owe them money,” said Jackie Kirby, El Paso County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.
Kirby also cautions to trust your instincts when it comes to the calls. If it seems fishy, it probably is.
“The deadline for fling taxes hasn’t even passed yet, so there’s no way that you could owe if you have not filed your taxes because the deadline is in April,” Kirby added.
The Colorado Springs Police Department is also seeing reports of the IRS scam, with about 60 people calling in to say they got suspicious calls also on Friday.
