CLEAR LAKE – The Clear Lake Police Department urges citizens to be aware of a phone “fishing” scam occurring in the area.
In the past week the Police Department has taken several reports from potential victims of the scam. According to reports, the potential victim is contacted via telephone from a subject claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service. The caller/scammer will most likely have a foreign type accent. The caller/scammer tells the potential victim they have back takes owed from prior years, which needs to be paid right away and threatens arrest. The caller/scammer urges the potential victim to obtain pre-paid money cards often referred to as “green dot cards” to cover the back tax amount. If money is put on the cards and the PIN is given to the caller/scammer, the money is gone and non-returnable. This is not how the IRS does business. The scammers are calling from foreign countries and are very difficult to trace.
The Police Department also urges citizens to be aware of prize scams. This occurs virtually the same way as mentioned before. The caller/scammer tells the potential victim they have won a large sum of money and possibly a car. All the scammer needs is a certain dollar amount to cover the taxes. They urge the potential victim to obtain pre-paid cards to cover the taxes. There is no prize money or car.