Government Impersonators Targeting Montana Residents

According to a press release from the Salt Lake City Division of the FBI, there have been numerous reports of scammers trying to target residents in communities along northern Montana’s Hi-Line. Unsolicited telephone calls have been reported where the caller claims to be a representative of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

With this scam, the caller typically tells the recipient of the call that money is owed on taxes and then demands payment. The caller will threaten that if the payment is not made, the FBI will have them arrested. Fraudsters have been masking the originating number, which appears on caller ID, have been masked as numbers for the local FBI offices in Montana.

People are advised that federal agencies DO NOT call or email individuals threatening them or demanding that money is sent in. Scammers often spoof caller ID information to make them appear to be coming from a federal agency’s legitimate phone number. These calls are fraudulent and recipients should hang up immediately and report the call if they are contacted by these fraudsters. These and all types of fraud schemes can and should be reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at www.ic3.gov .

By filing a complaint a lead is created and analysts from the FBI can identify patterns and leads from the hundreds of complaints they receive daily. The IC3 will refer the complaints and their analyses to relevant law enforcement agencies for follow-up.

If you think you have been a victim of an IRS impersonation scam, file a report online with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) at https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/. You can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov.