Stupak warns of phone, email scams regarding economic stimulus rebate payments

WASHINGTON, DC -- As federal tax rebate payments begin hitting bank accounts and mailboxes across northern Michigan, U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) warned constituents to be aware of telephone and email scammers posing as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees in order to collect personal financial information. Such scams are expected to continue indefinitely.

"The public should be on the alert for any emails or phone calls that claim to be from the IRS and request personal information such as bank account and Social Security numbers," Stupak said. "The IRS does not require any additional information from taxpayers to process tax rebate payments."

According to the IRS, some people have received phone calls about the economic stimulus payments, in which the caller impersonates an IRS employee. The caller asks the taxpayer for their Social Security and bank account numbers, claiming that the IRS needs the information to complete the processing of the taxpayer's payment. In reality, the IRS uses the information contained on the taxpayer's tax return to process stimulus payments, rather than contacting taxpayers by phone or e-mail.

Similarly, an e-mail claiming to come from the IRS about the "2008 Economic Stimulus Refund" tells recipients to click on a link to fill out a form, apparently for direct deposit of the payment into their bank account. This appears to be an identity theft scheme to obtain recipients' personal and financial information so the scammers can clean out their victims' financial accounts. In reality, taxpayers do not have to fill out a separate form to have the stimulus payment directly deposited in their bank account.

The goal of such scams is to trick people into revealing personal and financial information, such as Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers, which the scammers can use to commit identity theft.

Anyone wishing to access the IRS Web site should initiate contact by typing the IRS.gov address into their Internet address window, rather than clicking on a link in an e-mail or opening an attachment.

For more details and examples of this, visit Congressman Stupak's Web site.

Editor's Note: This press release is courtesy Nick Choate.