Don't fall Victim to Bogus IRS E-mails or Telephone calls.

Criminals are always at least two steps ahead of us when it comes to initiating new scams and it seems it didn't take long for them to come up with a new scam that coincides with the governments' multi-billion dollar stimulus package during tax season.

Criminals have been emailing and phoning consumers all over the country requesting Social Security Numbers, bank account information and other financial records claiming that if the taxpayer simply provided or confirmed their personal information, the IRS would then speedily deposit their tax refund along with their allotted portion of the stimulus refund, into their bank account electronically and the consumer wouldn't have to wait for the postman.

Don't fall victim to this scam. The IRS will never email or phone you asking for credit card information, social security numbers or bank account information. These are simply phishing scams designed to steal your identity and your money. Phishing (as in "fishing for information") is a scam where con artists send e-mail messages to trick you into revealing personal and financial information.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued several recent consumer warnings on similar scams where criminals use the IRS name or logo to grab your attention.

See prior blogs for more phishing alerts" or search the archives for phishing scams.