Utah woman says IRS scam call was accompanied by follow vehicle resembling police car


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SYRACUSE — Scam phone calls where the caller claims to be from the Internal Revenue Service seem to be surging in Utah, with multiple police agencies reporting new cases in recent weeks.

For Kayla Saunders, though, the scam took an unfamiliar and frightening turn Wednesday.

“(They told me), you know, you’re going to be taken to jail within 30, 45 minutes if you don’t comply,” she said.

Saunders said she then looked out the window of her Syracuse home and saw a white car with a light bar on top and tinted windows.

“There was a ‘cop’ car sitting on my road in front of my house,” she said. “It scared me enough to kind of listen.”

Saunders said the caller told her she had been audited and that she owed a large amount of money, but he ultimately tailored his demand to a dollar amount she could obtain.

Saunders said with the car outside, the situation seemed very real.

“They were very convincing, they were very detailed, they really knew what they were doing, did their homework,” Kayla Saunders said.

She packed her children into the family car and started to drive.

“He said proceed up to the Walgreens just up here on the corner by Smith’s,” Kayla's husband Spencer Saunders said. “Sure enough, this car that was sitting out in front of the house tails her the whole time up there.”

“The fact that I was being followed definitely threw me for a loop,” Kayla Saunders added. “It was definitely stressful.”

The caller, she said, ultimately instructed her to go into the Walgreens at 1037 W. and 1700 S. and obtain a $500 iTunes gift card, then return to the car and read the information on the card back to him, threatening that she would be arrested if she hung up the phone.

“At that point, I felt like it was a little bit fishy – that maybe something wasn’t right and that it was a scam, but you know, with this ‘cop’ following me, I wasn’t sure if I didn’t comply what would happen, if he would try something with my kids or I,” Saunders said. “As a mother, your first instinct is to do what you can to make sure your kids are safe, and so that’s what I did.”

Photo: KSL-TV
Photo: KSL-TV

Syracuse Police Det. Erin Behm said the department was investigating the case.

She noted the city’s police cruisers are black – unlike the car Saunders reported seeing.

Behm warned others if they find themselves in a similar situation to hang up and call police immediately, no matter what the caller on the other end is saying.

“The IRS is not going to call you on the phone and they’re surely not going to ask you to pay your bill in an iTunes gift card,” Behm said.

Provo, Orem and Cottonwood Heights Police are among the agencies to recently report cases involving scam IRS calls, though none of the cases were believed to involve a car that appeared to simulate a police cruiser.

In April, the federal government issued a warning about IRS scam calls involving the demand of an iTunes gift card.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has also set up a site for reporting these cases.

The Saunders family said it had not heard of the scam prior to what happened Wednesday.

They said they hoped their story would make others pay attention.

“I can’t even imagine that people for $500, $1,000 would go that far,” Spencer Saunders said. “It’s frustrating.”

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