Telephone fraud scams on rise, using IRS, Medicare, computer problems as fronts

BOARDMAN

On Aug. 22, a Boardman man received a call from someone who identified himself as an Internal Revenue Service agent.

The caller told the man he had made an error on his 2012 taxes, owed the IRS $4,500 and an arrest warrant would be issued if he did not pay.

The caller then instructed him to withdraw the money from a bank and buy nine pre-paid credit cards for $500 each, which the man did. The next instruction was to scratch off serial numbers of the cards and to read them to the caller. Again, the man complied.

After giving the caller the numbers, as well as his Social Security number, the man realized he had been the victim of a scam and filed a police report.

This scam is one of about eight similar fraud cases for which police reports were filed in Boardman in the last month, and one of many attempted in Mahoning County this summer.

Such scam attempts have been an issue for local law-enforcement officials for years, but the number increased this summer, said Maj. William Cappabianca with the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office.

“It’s really kind of amazing how [these scams have] picked up these last few years,” said Melissa Ames of the Better Business Bureau of the Mahoning Valley.

Ames said there are several common scams to watch for.

Learn what those are in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.