Phone scams have become an all too common recurrence in the daily lives of people.

Even though the public is catching on to these schemes, the scams have not slowed down over time and continue to affect the lives of those in Vicksburg and around the country.

The most popular scam hitting Vicksburg recently involves the Internal Revenue Service. More than one person has received a call from a number with a Houston, Texas area code claiming to be from the IRS saying they owe an arrearage on taxes and must pay the penalty immediately or officers will come to their house an arrest them.

“Consumers need to be aware that the Internal Revenue Service first does not call harassing individuals threatening to have them locked up or a lawsuit be filed against them,” Mark Green, IRS spokesman said.

Other things the IRS would not do over the telephone are ask you to pay using a prepaid debit card nor will they ask for personal information like a social security number or checking information. Green said these scams have garnered over $23 million.

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said if someone actually had debt of that nature it would be dealt with in person and not over the phone. If there were a warrant for an arrest, officers would not call in advance to let the person know they are coming to get them. Law enforcement also does not recoup fines, which is typically done through the court system.

Plenty of copycat scams have popped up using threatening wording to scare people out of their money. Pace said people around the country are getting phone calls from multiple fakers claiming to collect for anything from bad checks or traffic fines. He said the scammers are using electronic devices that make their phone number appear on caller ID to be local or in the U.S.

Local resident Dot Jackson said she got a call recently from a number that appeared to be from a Bell South number telling her she had won money from Consumer Clearinghouse and needed to contact a law group in Atlanta to claim her prize. She then received a second call claiming to come from a U.S. Government phone number where they gave her a long spiel on paying a finance company overseas to receive her prize.

Jackson then realized the call was fake and wanted to make sure people were aware that it could happen to them.

“I don’t want people to fall for this,” Jackson said. “If you have to pay to get money it is not legitimate.”

Even though Jackson spent a significant amount of time on the phone with the scammers, it is not the best way to deal with the calls.

“Our advice is to simply hang the phone up,” Pace said. He said as long as a person is on the phone with a scammer they are allowing the person into their life, and he advises the public never to give out information to the people who call.

Green agreed with Pace to “simply hang up” when these calls come in. Green himself received a message from a scammer telling him to call a number back immediately because he owed money to the IRS. He couldn’t believe they called him at the IRS on his government issued phone.

He said scam artists mostly prey on the elderly and college students. These age groups are vulnerable because the older crowd is aging out of the tax system and think they may have owed something from the past, and the younger group is just getting started in the tax system and may not know exactly what is expected from the IRS.

Pace said the attorney general and other sources verify only few callers actually operate within the U.S. with most of the calls originating outside of the U.S. Because of their location, many are out of reach from being penalized by domestic laws.