In a fraud similar to one perpetrated on a Darien man earlier this month, another Darien resident got a call from someone claiming to be from the IRS and demanding money.
The IRS has warned the public that its agents won't call out of the blue and demand that taxpayers immediately wire payment to them. (A similar case in New Canaan this week prompted the police chief there to warn town residents not to do so.)
Darien police gave this account of the incident:
The caller on April 15 told a resident of Denhurst Place that an IRS audit of his taxes revealed that the resident owed $4,000 — and the caller was an IRS agent who demanded payment immediately.
The Darien man was told to withdraw the money from a bank account and go to a CVS or Walmart to pick up a Green Dot Card that works much like a debit card.
The victim-to-be was supposed to have the money credited to the card and give the caller identification information which would allow the caller to withdraw the money at some other location.
The Darien man had second thoughts about sending the money and refused to so so.
At some point the Darien resident revealed to the caller that he lives in Darien. The Darien man soon received a phone call which was identified as coming from Darien Police.
The new caller said there was a warrant for the Darien man's arrest on tax-related charges. The Darien man decided to go to Police Department headquarters, where he found that there was no such warrant.
A police detective called the first phone number that had called the Darien man and spoke to a man with a Middle Eastern accent. The detective identified himself as an attorney for the Darien man, and the scammer then demanded the detective's juris number.
When the detective made up a number and gave it to him, the man said the number didn't confirm he was an attorney.
The man then began to use profanity and the call soon ended — without police being able to identify the scammer, but without the Darien man losing any more than his time, much less the $4,000.
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