Phony IRS Agent Scams $1K from Woman with 1 Phone Call

A single, one-hour phone call to a 55-year-old New Canaan woman resulted in a $1,000 payoff for a scam artist representing himself as an agent of the IRS, according to police.

Here's how it happened, New Canaan police said:

The woman, a resident of Harrison Avenue, said the man left a voicemail on her home telephone telling her that he was from the Internal Revenue Service and asking her to call back a certain phone number. She called.

He told her that she owed the IRS roughly $4,000, and he said that if she paid in the next hour, she could avoid legal proceedings.

She indicated she was willing, so he told her to go to Home Depot in Norwalk and buy Reloadit cash cards, which work much like debit cards. He stayed on the phone with her as she went there. She bought two cards and loaded each one with $500 in credit.

(It was unclear from the police report exactly how the original $4,000 demand was lowered to $1,000.)

He had her read the bar code numbers to him over the phone. Shortly afterward he was no longer on the line and the connection had been lost.

As was her $1,000.

Then she became suspicious and spoke with New Canaan police about the incident. It is often difficult and more often impossible to trace who removes money from these kinds of cards.

See also: IRS Says Don't Wire $$ to Callers Claiming to be from IRS