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SALT LAKE CITY — Les Spencer is fed up with the scammer who is trying to pry cash out of him. In one day, he received three pre-recorded phone calls within hours.
"A scare tactic kind of phone call," said Spencer. "'This is your final notice from the Internal Revenue Service — a warrant has been issued for your arrest!"
Spencer says he knows the IRS doesn't call anyone threatening arrest if they don't pay their back taxes immediately. But he understands why the scam works.
"It's intimidating," said Spencer. "I think the elderly, people who are not as tech savvy or not as exposed to the public as often — it's intimidating to them."
"The IRS and [computer] tech scams are the two big ones right now," said Jane Driggs of the Utah Better Business Bureau.
The BBB has just released its new anti-fraud tool, Scam Tracker.
"This actually started with the BBB in Boise," said Driggs "We have always gotten calls about scams. They developed this software that would let BBB's track where scammers are hitting."
Scam Tracker first allows people to report scams, whether or not they lost money.
"You go in, you enter your contact info which is not shown — it's redacted — what the scam is and who you think the scammer is," said Driggs. "You can enter any phone numbers. You can upload an image — anything you know about the scammer. And, that's it and then click submit!"
Driggs says the Utah BBB receives two to three reports a day.
"They're starting to add up, so we'll get more and more as people get more used to it and realize it's easy to enter the information and help someone else."
And then anyone can see in real time what scams are hitting where. Scam Tracker also has heat maps, showing where scams are being reported.
"You can see in West Jordan how many are hitting, or in Taylorsville," said Driggs. "You can actually expand out to see how many in Utah or even the country."
The information going into Scam Tracker will be shared with the authorities.
"We haven't got the technology yet," said Driggs, "but it's going to happen where law enforcement will receive all our Scam Tracker entries. I hope it's going to be able to help them track them [scammers] down and stop them."
Les Spencer says people need to know if a scam is hitting their neighborhood. And he firmly believes "no" is always an acceptable answer.
"People just need to know, don't be afraid to say 'no'" said Spencer. "I hang up on people four or five times a day."
