KGVO News recently spoke with Anastasia Burton from the Montana Attorney General's Office about a scam in which someone claiming to be from the IRS was attempting to intimidate victims by coercing them into giving up their personal information.

That's where my personal story begins.

On Thursday, I found a message on my home phone from a man with a thick foreign accent claiming to be from the IRS and called the number given on my answering machine. Hoping to get to the bottom of the scam, I returned the call with my recorder running.

A man claiming to be from the 'IRS Investigation Department' answered the call and stated that 'a legal lawsuit has been filed against you concerning a tax evasion". He then went on to state that 'an associate of the Treasury Inspector General who visited your home, once in September 2014 and once in December 2014, and you were not there, so he left a yellow slip in your mailbox.'

I repeatedly claimed that I had no knowledge of the contacts, and asked what I should do.

The caller stated 'let me notify you that these lines are federally recorded and monitored by the IRS and the Attorney General's office.' I asked for the man's name, and he replied  'my name is James Anderson from the Crime Investigation Department from the headquarters in Santa Rosa, California.'

The caller even game me a case number and the number of an arrest warrant made out in my name.

Unfortunately. I seemed to tip off the caller by asking over and over again what I was supposed to do to comply with his demands, and the call ended abruptly with the following comment.

'You are supposed to get an umbrella from the nearest certified store, the government certified store, and stick that umbrella up your [DELETED EXPLETIVE], you [DELETED EXPLETIVE]'.

I guess he didn't appreciate me wasting so much of his valuable time.

Anastasia Burton with the Montana Attorney General's office said the IRS and other legitimate government agencies never make cold calls to a person's home, so the best way to handle the situation is to simply hang up and contact authorities.

So, the bottom line is NEVER give out personal information over the phone to someone you don't know, even if they claim to be a a 'trusted government agency'.

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