You are here

Fraud Alert

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Fraud Alert: Fraudulent Tax Debt or Judgment Collection
 
The Clerk's Office has received several reports of people receiving telephone calls from someone purporting to be from the U.S. Department of Justice or the courthouse.  Caller identification information may show the call coming from a miscellaneous cell phone number, the U.S. Courthouse, or the Department of Justice.  Contact may also be from an email address "usdojagents@usa.com."  With all contacts, the caller will explain the person owes a federal tax debt or judgment, will provide a case number, and instruct the recipient to pay the debt by telephone or by a money wire service, such as Western Union.  The caller will then threaten the person with an arrest warrant for failure to pay the debt immediately.
 
These phone calls and emails are fraudulent and have no connection to either the United States District Court or to the United States Department of Justice.
 
Neither this Court nor any other law enforcement agency will ever call someone to request the payment of any federal debt or judgment by telephone or money wire service.  The collection of tax debts are handled by the Internal Revenue Service and additional information about their collection process is available at https://www.irs.gov/irs-pdf/p594.pdf.  Members of the public can also call the IRS at (800) 913-6050 to confirm whether they currently owe a federal tax debt.  The Clerk's Office can confirm whether any federal judgment has been issued by this Court.
 
If anyone is contacted or has been contacted by someone requesting such payments, please do not make the payment and instead report the details of the incident to the FBI.