IRS imposters target college students

Having mastered ripping off immigrants and the elderly, con artists have put together a new twist on an old scam to trick college students into thinking they need to cough up cash to cover a “federal student tax.”

No one owes any money for a “federal student tax,” however, because there is no such tax. The crooks are using the term to scare people into paying.

The April tax season is long gone, but bullies run a year-round business. Another scam that’s likely to get hotter this summer: Demand for quick payments on iTunes gift cards and other gift cards.

The crooks making the bogus phone calls sound convincing. Some millennials and others have rushed to put anywhere from $500 to $1,500 on the plastic prepaid cards sold at drug stores and mega-discount chains.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration warned last week that scammers are now trying to persuade potential victims to put cash on all sorts of gift cards to pay bogus bills – not just iTunes gift cards. The victim reads the scammer the numbers off the card to give scammers access to the money.

Luis D. Garcia, a spokesman for the IRS in Detroit, said the college scam is particularly unusual because the callers mention a tax that doesn’t even exist.

Garcia said some students at Michigan State University reported that the calls sounded particularly convincing last spring. One twist: The fraudsters claimed that they were with the FBI and calling on behalf of the IRS. The caller ID seemed to back up the FBI story.

“They were using the real phone number of the FBI office,” Garcia said.

Young consumers who don’t know much about tax rules might even believe something as bogus as a “federal student tax.” But seriously, why would the federal government tax students, people who already cannot pay some bills because they’re overstretched by student loans and credit card debt?

In some cases, con artists made calls look legitimate by spoofing phone numbers of the university student aid office, again, with the goal of acquiring personal information.

“These scams and schemes continue to evolve nationwide, and now they’re trying to trick students,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in a statement.

IRS impostors threaten immigrants with immediate deportation or arrest. To avoid trouble, they say, you must come up with cash now and put that money on a Green Dot Prepaid Card or iTunes card. Or the con artists could ask you to send that money via Western Union or MoneyGram.

One of the threats to older consumers: Revoking their driver’s licenses, if they don’t rush to the store immediately and put the money they allegedly owe on a gift card or prepaid card.

Best move: Hang up on these jokers. One can go to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration scam page to report the call. See www.treasury.gov/tigta for information on reporting scams.

Or you might get an official looking email. Again, the idea is to get you off guard and trick you into quickly giving information so that you get your tax refund soon or some other such nonsense.

The IRS said fraudsters more frequently want personal tax information, which crooks can use later to file false tax returns to steal refund cash.

Consumers are warned that it’s essential to guard your personal information, not overshare on social media and realize that an email can easily contain a link to a site that will imitate an official-looking website, such as IRS.gov.

This story was originally published July 5, 2016 at 3:36 PM with the headline "IRS imposters target college students."