PORT TOWNSEND — A con artist picked the wrong time, with his victim in the wrong place, to work a scam on a woman he’d already bilked of $11,000.
The woman, who’d been victimized by someone claiming to be with the Internal Revenue Service, received a call on her cell phone that purported to be from the Port Townsend Police Department.
The only problem was that she received the call inside police headquarters.
According to Officer Patrick Fudally, “as the victim was meeting with an officer at the police station to file a report, the victim’s phone began ringing with the Port Townsend Police Department phone number.
“No member of the department was trying to call the victim.
“The officer meeting with the victim took the phone, and the suspect identified himself as a dispatcher for the Port Townsend Police Department. When the officer identified herself the suspect quickly hung up the phone.”
Police declined to identify the victim.
Had the call continued, Fudally said, the scammer would have threatened the woman with arrest if she didn’t pay a fictitious IRS overdue debt.
Fudally said it was impossible to trace the bogus call — called a “spoof” — which may have come from outside the United States.
He emphasized that Port Townsend police are dispatched through Jeffcom 9-1-1 Communications and have no department dispatchers — and that any caller threatening someone with arrest on behalf of the IRS is a scammer.
The woman already had paid $11,000 to the scammer before growing suspicious and visiting police.
She’d been the victim of a widespread swindle.
“I think the IRS scam is probably everywhere,” Fudally said.
“The IRS has on their website that they’d received about 90,000 complaints and more than $5 million had been collected by the scammers since August 2014.
“I’m sure the number has gone up quite a bit since then.”
The initial scam starts with a bogus IRS agent demanding payment by a prepaid debit card or wire transfer, something the legitimate tax agency never asks, Fudally said.
In the woman’s case, the scammer thought he could extort even more money by threatening her with immediate arrest and used an electronic device to “spoof” her caller identification software to show the actual number of Port Townsend police.
“The Port Townsend Police Department wants to remind everyone never to provide personal information over the phone,” Fudally said.
“The Port Townsend Police Department will not try to collect fines or assist in tax collection.
“If someone calls stating they are a Port Townsend police officer or a local dispatcher, you can verify this by asking for their name and then calling our dispatch center at 360-344-9779.”
