Tax scammers targeting Philly suburbs

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Scammers claiming to be from the IRS are again harassing people in the Philadelphia region. 

Senior Annette Johnson said she knew it wasn’t really the IRS calling her.  

“It’s a recording and it says this IRS and this is the last warning last call with regards to your back taxes that is owed,” said the Chester County resident.

The call is a scam, since the IRS does not use the telephone as the primary way of reaching out,  said Michael Bannon of the Bucks County office of Consumer Protection. 

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The auto dialer has been targeting hundreds of area homes.

“We’ve been bombarded for the last couple of weeks by residents who have received phone calls or these fraudulent phone calls from scammers pretending to be the IRS,” Bannon said. “They’ve really hit our area strong in the past couple of weeks.”

Robo-dialers “go through an area code, they go through 215, 610,” he said. “It kind of plagues the region and then moves on, but will be back again. It’s a very successful scam.”

Bannon advised residents not to answer calls from unknown numbers. And if you do pick up, he said,  hang up immediately.

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