Bridgeport police warn of IRS phone scam

Bridgeport police say that residents of the Park City have been flooded with telephone calls over the past two weeks from scam artists claiming to represent the Internal Revenue Service. Investigators

News 12 Staff

Aug 8, 2016, 2:03 AM

Updated 3,104 days ago

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Bridgeport police say that residents of the Park City have been flooded with telephone calls over the past two weeks from scam artists claiming to represent the Internal Revenue Service.
Investigators tell News 12 the vast majority of the calls are coming from scammers in other countries.
Lina Stewart, 78, says she got a call from a man who claimed to be an agent with the IRS and said she owed $2,200 in back taxes.
"And if I didn't pay this right away they would have the detective come to my door and pick me up and take me to jail," she says. "So I told them to come on."
Bridgeport Police Chief AJ Perez says there have been hundreds of complaints about this particular scam over the past few weeks alone.
"The IRS will not call you on the phone and demand money from you or threaten you in any way," Perez says. "If the IRS is going to contact you, they're going to contact you by U.S. Mail."
Perez advises anyone who receives a call from somebody claiming to represent the Internal Revenue Service, the best thing to do is simply to hang up.