Burlington Police Have Fun With Fake IRS Agent

BURLINGTON (CBS) - Burlington police had a little fun with phone scammers on Monday when the department received a fake IRS call and they decided to call them back.

"They were attempting to commit a crime and I was attempting to make it more difficult for them," said Burlington Police Lieutenant Glen Mills.

'They' are scammers, impersonating IRS agents and threatening to arrest people if they don't collect money.

Lt. Mills decided to give them a call and post each development on Twitter after several residents were targeted earlier in the day.

"They call up and they'll say 'hey this is the IRS we're going to arrest you, you owe us money, call this number' and they'll give the phone number. So instead of getting that resident they got me," he said.

He then kept them on the phone as long he could to confirm that number was, in fact, a scam, by asking them to fill out things like the '1099 d-u-m-m-y form.'

"If you would try it with the IRS, they would hang up on you," he joked.

Scammers typically ask folks to go to their local convenience store or pharmacy, buy a prepaid card and load it with money.

Once the funds are on that card with those associated accounts then you would read those numbers off to someone anywhere in the world and they can take that money out, once it's gone it's pretty much gone.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reports over 10,000 victims have collectively paid over $54 million as a result of phone scams since October 2013.

Lt. Mills says he hopes him sharing his experience will help people spread the word.

"Hopefully with a little humor you can get people to talk about it and warn other people because it's a serious issue," Mills said.