Beware of IRS Scam target Sonoma County Residents

[Barry]

I received this message from Paula Downing (Manager of the Sebastopol Farmer's Market) recently:

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HI Barry,

I got a very strange phone call this week which turns out to be a scam.

The fellow said he was from IRS enforcement and that there was a warrant out for my arrest. I was amazed and skeptical - so I asked a few questions.

In response to my questions he said, "I don't have to answer your questions. The police will be at your door within one half hour!" That was obviously nonsense so I called the IRS. They confirmed that it was a scam.

The phone number of the fellow who called is 202.241.8586.

I notified Jeff Weaver and I thought that maybe you might want to alert the readers.

Thanks
Paula Downing

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The Press Democrat ran an article on the scam recently as well. There's not much additional info, besides confirmation that other residents and business owners have received calls as well.

[podfish]

I got a very strange phone call this week which turns out to be a scam.....

The phone number of the fellow who called is 202.241.8586.

there are several sites you can use to double-check numbers. I ran this number on this one and it has a scam warning associated with it.

Now that it's pretty easy to see the number being used to call, it's worth checking one of these reverse-directory services before responding to unknown numbers - or, like in this case, to confirm someone's claimed identity.

In this case, the number leads to a company called "Ymax Oration" and googling them leads to a lot of info about this scam.