Reported incidents about contacts that were made to victims of IRS & FBI related phishing scams show similar characteristics in the approach taken by the scammers to dupe victims into surrendering sensitive information. The emails sent to the victims all look official, in the sense that identity thieves use exact letter heads and official looking logos, even the content of the emails sound convincing.

The premise of these scams is to basically grap the attention of the individual and suck them into the scam by presenting a situation in which the victim must cooperate immediately or face serious consequences.

Those who are not familiar with phishing scams, may feel uneasy when they receive emails directly from the IRS and it is not tax time yet, or from the FBI. This is enough to get anyone a little nervous.

Email phishing scams are very common and identity thieves use any angle to get vicitims to follow through and volunteer the requested information. What we want to make sure all readers understand here about  phishing scams through email, is that you should never answer to them, or even open them. The IRS will NEVER send you an email asking you to verify any information or to communicate anything tax related. Neither will the FBI, these are governement organizations with strict security policies.

It’s a little harder for these scams to take place via regular mail, which is why you mostly see phishing scams go through email spam inboxes. A good policy to implement for yourself would be that if it’s in your spam emailbox then simply empty it out, don’t even bother sorting through the emails for you’ll find nothing of interest.

The phishing scams may also come through phone calls, it is definitely possible for the IRS to call you in order to handle specific matters related to your taxes. However, be wary of the person calling you. The IRS assigns ID numbers to all its employees and they typically identify themselves with these ID numbers and then their names. You should also take note of the phone number they’re calling you from. If you do not have a phone that shows the caller ID number, get one! They’re relatively inexpensive. If the area code and phone look out of the ordinary (something other than 1-800, 1-866, 1-888 etc) then you should be somewhat concerned especially if you were not expecting the call.

The IRS, FBI or any other government organization contact citizens through regular mail. If the IRS wants you to know that you owe taxes they’ll write you about it. If the FBI needs anything from you they’ll either write you about it or show up at your front door.
Again, the best thing you can do about these email phishing scams is to ignore and delete them.