They used to only do that in the event of a random audit.<\/a> \u00a0Like if your file got pulled they pulled the tax transcript to make sure you didn’t add any zeros or change any numbers, or anything like that. \u00a0Well, now, in Florida for every loan, if you’re getting a mortgage, they’re going to verify your tax transcript before you ever even get final approval. \u00a0So this is where we see the bomb drop sometime because we’re like, “what, there was a tax return filed?” \u00a0They had no idea. \u00a0Like someone got a refund usually is what happens.<\/p>\nD: \u00a0<\/strong>Yeah, you know it’s really common in our practice too. \u00a0It’s even happened to employees of mine. \u00a0Knock on wood, thank god, it hasn’t happened to me yet. \u00a0I just learned something today.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Now that is crazy. \u00a0Imagine that, someone that works for an IRS attorney, their IRS return gets hacked.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, it’s a real big headache in our practice because one of the things that we do when we get a power of attorney, which allows us to communicate with the IRS and represent tax payers, is we will pull their account transcripts. \u00a0Much like you were talking about. \u00a0But we use a special service that’s kind of like we’re part of the IRS computer system, so we can pull records and what-not and it’s really a thorn in my side because those transcripts really tell me a lot. \u00a0They verify and corroborate the tax payer\u2019s story. \u00a0They tell me what returns need to be filed and so on and so forth. \u00a0But when there’s an id theft hold on the account, guess who can’t get the transcripts. \u00a0I can’t get them. So then it creates a big headache. \u00a0Tax payers go down to the local IRS office and ask for the transcripts for me so that I can feel comfortable with whatever plan of action I decided to implement.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Because, they have to actually prove who they are at that point. Right?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, they have to show i.d. I think they might even have to show a couple forms of i.d. \u00a0There’s another case that I have pending right now, that was sort of interesting. \u00a0The tax payer was going to end up owing – or actually did already owe about $400,000.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Like from the real return?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, from their actual returns, from their actual high income. \u00a0Owed about $400,000 and somebody stole his name, his identity, tried to file a refund return and guess what, that didn’t work out too well for the fraudster because any refund, artificial or not, that was generated was going back to apply to the big debts that the tax payer already had. \u00a0That’s typically what I see. \u00a0And so it doesn’t work out real well for the fraudsters because that refund that they’re trying to generate – that $9,000 or $12,000 refund or what have you – it doesn’t appear because it got applied to the past debt.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Now, where are you seeing these people are at? \u00a0Because I know the ones – and you see this way more than me I’m sure – the ones that we’ve seen, several times they’ve been out of California. \u00a0Are you seeing anything overseas?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> You mean the people perpetrating the problem?<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, the people trying to commit the fraudulent return.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0That’s a good question. \u00a0I never find out who it is.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Oh, you don’t know?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0I don’t have any idea. \u00a0I actually had my identity stolen, but not related to tax. \u00a0I’ve had people go out and in the past they would open up credit accounts in my name, order the merchandise, have the merchandise delivered, and in my case, they had a bunch of merchandise – computers – about 8 or 10,000 dollars\u2019 worth of computers delivered to the Bronx. \u00a0At that point, I still had never even been to the Bronx. I found out about it and it was just a really big hassle to clean up and to prove that it wasn’t me that opened the account, it wasn’t me that got the merchandise. \u00a0I was already an attorney at that time. \u00a0I kind of knew what to do.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0You were like “what the heck?”<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Right, and I bet you it took 40 hours to straighten out.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I’m sure.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0I ended up calling the Hillsboro County Sheriff’s office, Tampa Police Department, the FBI, the Secret Service and everybody just kind of shrugged and said “well, what do you want us…?” \u00a0I even called NYPD and they just shrugged and said “well, what do you want us to do about it?”<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Here’s the problem, here’s what we run into, even with these scams. \u00a0You’re here, they’re there, so nobody wants to do it because “Not my jurisdiction” – you’re there. \u00a0Well it wasn’t committed here, the people were in New York – “not my jurisdiction”. \u00a0And they all kind of laugh you off, and you end up with the FBI, which that’s a back burner little needle in a haystack.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, that’s pretty much what the FBI and Secret Service told me was like, “ok”.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0“Good luck”<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, this isn’t an epidemic and there’s nothing we’re going to do about it.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0We do notice when we pull credit reports to pre-approved people, one of the things we like to do is look over it with them because they’ll show other addresses sometimes they’ve never seen. \u00a0And that’s usually an idea that they may have an account.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, I’ve seen a trend towards Hispanic surnames seem to be a little bit more popular. \u00a0At least in my experience. \u00a0And common names seem to be somewhat more common, in my experience.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0And there could be mixed credit, where it’s just mixed. \u00a0Especially junior\/senior. \u00a0That happens all the time.<\/p>\nD: \u00a0<\/strong>So let’s talk about how you might find out that you’re the victim of possible identity theft with regard to the IRS. \u00a0One of the things that you might get is, you might get an IRS notice or letter from the IRS saying that you filed more than one tax return. \u00a0I’d say that’s a pretty clear indication that there might be a problem.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Is that usually the first sign? \u00a0They’ll see something like that?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, a lot of times what will happen is somebody will be kind of late in that January to April filing tax season filing cycle, and they’ll file on say April 15th and they’ll get a letter back saying you filed duplicate tax returns.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Because of course the fraudster filed in February.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, or January. \u00a0The system’s got some flaws in it and one of those flaws is that the first person to file kind of gets precedence because the IRS doesn’t have enough fraud prevention factors in place to really prevent this from happening. \u00a0It’s interesting, I’m not really blaming the IRS, I mean this is a big problem and I’m not sure exactly what they should do about it. \u00a0Good thing I’m not working for them because I would…you know.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Well I do know that when you trace it back to what’s the root, I’ve had a lot of clients over the years that work at a hospital in the area – I won’t even name them out – but what happens is their system ends up getting hacked into and then so the people that were trying to buy a house found out someone else filed a return.\u00a0 They either say oh no, this doesn’t match because there was already a return file. \u00a0Other people at work will also have that and they’ll realize later that the employer’s system actually got hacked. \u00a0So I know that there’s a lot of steps going on right now on a legislative level to change all those things. \u00a0Our industry is being turned upside down in October and a lot of that is protection from identity.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, I think the HPPA laws, the healthcare, also allows protection in there.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0It’s like coming down on every level, so hopefully it will slow down a little.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Hopefully. \u00a0Another thing that you can be aware of if you get a letter saying you have additional tax or if they took your refund and applied it to somewhere else or if you have some kind of collection action that you’re not aware of that you should be aware of, that’s an indication there could be an i.d. theft problem. \u00a0And another one could be if there’s IRS records indicating that you’ve received wages from some place that you never worked. \u00a0That could be another big red flag. \u00a0Obviously if there’s a W-2 out there floating around from a job that you never had, that’s probably a pretty clear indicator that somebody is trying to game the system and trying to generate a big refund.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0So how and where would that even be? \u00a0Like someone’s completing a completely bogus W-2, like the employer didn’t even file that, this was just a…I went to Office Depot and bought a W-2 and now I’m going to file a return?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, that’s what’s going on right now.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0O.K.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0I forget how many tax payers there are in America. \u00a0There’s about a hundred million I think, and so…I mean it’s a pretty big job.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0You said even yourself as an attorney, it took you 40 hours at least to unwind identity theft. \u00a0What would someone do if they are a victim of this tax fraud? And they get some of these notices.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Despite my story of complaining to every law enforcement agency I could think of, you really…Step number one is you really do need to file report with law enforcement, and the question becomes, which law enforcement agency is appropriate? \u00a0And I would just that, it’s your local law enforcement. \u00a0If you live in the county, it’s going to be the sheriff’s office, if you live in the city or municipality, it’s going to be the police department. \u00a0They’re not probably going to want to take the report, but you need to go down and you need to call and make those reports. \u00a0A lot of times I think those types of reports now are being taken over the phone, by non-sworn in officers, so it’s not really a huge burden to law enforcement.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0It’s kind of just a matter of putting it on record, wouldn’t you say that’s about?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I actually have a friend who’s a TPD detective and he works in auto theft primarily and they’re even running across this, there’s a funny story going around. \u00a0It’s kind of the prime story of Tampa being the epicenter for tax-related i.d. theft. \u00a0There was a guy that was living in the ghetto and they kept noticing him because he was living a very flashy lifestyle he obviously had a lot of cash, and they couldn’t figure out what the deal was because they were…they had him under surveillance, they couldn’t find him doing anything illegal, but he just really seemed really out of place. \u00a0One of the indicators was he had a car that he had actually chromed. \u00a0He chromed the entire car. \u00a0So that costs a lot of money. \u00a0Ultimately what happened is they ended up doing a traffic stop on him and they found hundreds of social security cards. \u00a0A high volume of refund checks and what not and that’s how they found out that, hey, this guy isn’t dealing drugs, he’s not dealing with stolen property or whatever. \u00a0He’s actually doing this IRS stuff.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0He’s dealing identity theft, that’s what he’s dealing.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0They ultimately reported it to the IRS and the IRS was kind of like not too cooperative, the IRS just kind of didn’t know what to do with it. \u00a0Ultimately I think he was prosecuted but I can remember law enforcement telling me – local law enforcement – they felt really frustrated about it because there was this theft going on at this really grand scale. \u00a0Hundreds of millions of dollars and even they were having a hard time getting anybody to do anything about it.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0It’s kind of like one of those “it’s out of my jurisdiction” not me…not me…everybody’s pointing and you’re like “ok, where does this go?” \u00a0It’s like the homeless item in your house.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, so step number 2 is going to be, you’re going to need to report the identity theft at ftc.gov. \u00a0That’s a website, that’s ftc.gov and you can also learn additional ways to deal with identity theft at identitytheft.gov. \u00a0So you’re going to want to report it to ftc.gov, and that’s probably going to help in your individual case, but it’s going to help in the bigger scheme of things so the government can try to help deal with the situation. \u00a0They can understand the scope and magnitude. \u00a0So that’s a suggestion. \u00a0The next suggestion would be you need to contact at least one of the major credit bureaus and put a fraud alert at the credit bureaus.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I would say all of them.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, I would too. \u00a0But at least one would be a really good idea. \u00a0And then you’re going to want to go ahead and contact your financial institutions. \u00a0Your banks and whatnot. \u00a0And close any accounts that were opened without your permission.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Now, the fraud alert, let’s talk about that too because that can kind of be a pain, especially, and we’ve seen this when people actually go to purchase a home or something and they have to – what they call – unfreeze their credit reports so we can actually pull it.<\/p>\nD: \u00a0<\/strong>Yeah, for sure. \u00a0I actually, as a result of my own identity theft problem, I started using a service. \u00a0I’m not going to tout the name of the service, but it’s a service that costs about 25 or 30 dollars a month and what it allows me to do is, it allows me to get instant alerts anytime, any accounts are open anytime, there’s any kind of credit report is pulled and it also gives me free on-demand credit reports as often as I like without dinging my credit score. \u00a0And so, that’s a pretty good solution. \u00a0There’s one called Lifelock, I’ve not had any dealings with them, but they advertise on the radio a whole lot.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0You just have the insurance type stuff where they’ll actually pay if you have identity theft, to unwind it. \u00a0But annualcreditreport.com is free and you can get it from all 3 credit bureaus. \u00a0Everyone is entitled to that at least once a year.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0So that’s good.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0It’s completely free.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Everyone should check their credit report at least on an annual basis even if you’re not a victim of identity theft, sometimes weird things just shows up by mistake on your credit report.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I check mine at least quarterly. \u00a0It’s pretty easy for something like me to do, we just pull Tri Merge and see what’s on there.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0I’m obsessive-compulsive about it. \u00a0I pull it once a month, twice a month.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Thank god you’re not pulling a real report, you’d have like a million enquiries on there.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0But I’m also experimenting with different ways to increase your credit score and things like that because I\u2019m a geek like that in terms of systems. \u00a0I like to see how things work.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0We actually have a back-end system called a “What If Simulator” and that’s what we do – we play with that to see – like if we need a certain number of points on a score to get somebody a loan, we’ll play with it. \u00a0Take the balances up, down, open credit, increase the lines, all that kind of stuff and it will tell us roughly how many possible points we can get and it’s pretty accurate.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0I would think, in your business, as a real estate professional that that would be really helpful because I’m sure there’s people that don’t have the credit right now. \u00a0Credit score.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0We have one right now, the guy put a balance on a credit line and it dropped his score by one point to throw him out of the program and there’s just no exception on these things. Since the housing collapse and the meltdown, the loan’s not savable, it’s non-negotiable. \u00a0It’s not like the good ol’ days where if you had a good rapport with the underwriter, you could get that one point exception. \u00a0As soon as that new mortgage loan reports, you’re good to go. \u00a0It’s just, we’re not in those days anymore unfortunately.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, that’s too bad. \u00a0I’ve heard those things are starting to loosen up, maybe a little bit. \u00a0But, yeah, definitely, I think there was a big pendulum swing after the real estate crash and underwritten perhaps, in my opinion, went a little bit too far in the strictest…<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0They did. \u00a0They’re still too tight. \u00a0We’ve seen it loosen some and it probably will continue to loosen a little more, it will never ever be a loose as it was, which it shouldn’t be. \u00a0It was way too loose.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Agreed.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0But on the same token, I think it’s always going to be a little tighter than it should be.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0So, we talked about checking your credit report at least annually to try to prevent and reduce your risk. \u00a0One of the other things, it’s pretty obvious, but most people don’t think about this, is don’t carry your social security card in your wallet. \u00a0Or on your person regularly.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Such a good point. \u00a0I can’t tell you the people that, literally we’ll have a new hire and they just pull their social security card out because they always carry it and you don’t need that ever. \u00a0Unless you’re buying a house and they’re asking you for a second form of i.d. or getting a new job.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, I think, day one of your new job – I just hired somebody – and I told them on Monday, bring your identity documents because I’ll need it for the I-9, although I’m not sure that even matters anymore.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I can’t think of any other time you would need to carry it around with you.<\/p>\nD: \u00a0Exactly. \u00a0So, don’t carry it around with you because that’s real obvious. \u00a0If you lose your wallet and your driver\u2019s license and your social security card are in there, I think you might be in a\u00a0little bit of trouble there.<\/p>\n
K:<\/strong> \u00a0That’s all they need. \u00a0To pull a credit report and to do identity theft, you need name, address, date of birth (all on the license!), social security, Bam!<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0God forbid.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I can’t tell you how many accounts someone can open and pull credit with just that information.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0God forbid they have your mother’s maiden name, then you’re really dead, don’t you think?<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I mean, really we don’t even need that for date of birth, it’s address, name, social security number, date of birth, that’s it.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0As a society we’re going to have to come up with some kind of safe guard maybe it’s biometrics, maybe it’s fingerprints, I don’t know. \u00a0This is not working, clearly.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I think everything is moving that way and hopefully the IRS also has to take some precaution for this kind of stuff. \u00a0I think they should be required to do it so when these refunds to in, like when your regular banking information has changed or it’s different, you should have to go through a little more red tape. \u00a0I think that might avoid that, don’t you?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, but then the other concern would be it’s kind of big brother-ish…<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0They already it anyway. \u00a0You know that.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Do they have your retina scan?<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I think they got it.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Do they have your fingerprint?<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I think they got it all.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0They certainly have my fingerprints.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0It’s not like they don’t know who you bank with. \u00a0How many times are they used to going in and swoop or levy or all those fancy IRS attorney words, with the bank accounts, right? \u00a0They just take what they want, they know where you bank. \u00a0They got it.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0So the next thing that you should do to reduce your risk is, you know, lots of times businesses that you’re doing business with will routinely ask you for your social security number and you know, you don’t need to give them to them. \u00a0There’s very rare instances where a legitimate business needs your social security number, so try not to give out your social security number whenever possible.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Now, do you ever see this with EIN’s which is kind of like a business social security number? \u00a0You ever see that?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0You know, personally, I’m not as worried about the EIN, I do tend to protect it, but there’s not nearly as many things you can do with an EIN in the name of the business. \u00a0I think ever for applying for business credit, you still need a social security number for the most part so I don’t worry about that too much, but I also don’t think I’d be bandying that about. \u00a0I don’t think I’d put it on my website or anything.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I’ve seen people like just dish it out like candy. \u00a0It’s like whoa, that’s like a social security number for your business.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0The next thing on my list here is protect your personal financial information, at home even, and on your computer. \u00a0So just make sure it’s secure. \u00a0It’s common sense. \u00a0Just don’t leave it lying around.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Oh my gosh, that’s a big one. \u00a0I can’t tell you the times we’d go in to list a property and I’d have to say put all that mail away. \u00a0Like seriously, you have all those credit cards and bank information because they still get mail. \u00a0And you know, guns, jewelry, all that crazy stuff. \u00a0Identity. \u00a0Huge.<\/p>\nD: \u00a0<\/strong>You know, there could be cleaning crews at your home or at your business. \u00a0I’m not saying you should be distrustful.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0It could be anybody. \u00a0It could be somebody to do a repair on your house.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0You just have to use common sense. \u00a0The next on is, you know, you get a social security administration earning statement every year. A lot of us just look at it and we look at, well how much are we going to get when we retire, then you laugh because it’s such a small amount and you kind of toss it away. \u00a0Make sure that earning statement looks to be accurate. \u00a0If there’s extra earnings on there, you might think that’s cool and that’s going to help you in the long wrong, but I would suggest that’s probably not a good idea. \u00a0If you noticed that the earnings statement is not accurate, you’re going to want to go ahead and get that fixed.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I never even thought about that one. \u00a0Like now, I’m going to check it.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, see?<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> Because I look over it, I toss it in my magic blue envelope, and I’m done.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0You learn things on this show. \u00a0Every week.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0I do, every week.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0Protect your personal computers by using firewalls, anti-virus software, make sure you do those annoying windows security updates and patches. \u00a0Make sure you do all that stuff because it’s going to keep your computer more secure. \u00a0Nowadays, almost everything about our life, is on a computer someplace. \u00a0So make sure that you protect that stuff because it’s very valuable and it’s a huge headache, as the story I told.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0And your internet too. \u00a0Your Wi-Fi. \u00a0Even those super long obnoxious, annoying, two million letter long passwords are annoying…they’re safe.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0That keeps you safe from the people just driving through your neighborhood.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Correct.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0What do they call that again, it’s got an interesting name.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0It does have a real name and I can’t think what it is.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0It’s like skyjacking or something like that.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Something, where they just literally drive through, look for open Wi-Fi signals or easy ones to hack and they basically just swoop in there and get access to any personal information.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0I think I liked the old days better, you know, where you\u00a0just had an open Wi-Fi account at your house and you just didn’t have to worry about it. \u00a0But now, there’s just so much potential liability. \u00a0I mean, can you imagine somebody, if you left your Wi-Fi open and then somebody driving by started doing inappropriate things through your Wi-Fi account.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Oh my gosh, I can’t even image.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong> \u00a0And it gets traced back to you…<\/p>\nK:<\/strong> \u00a0Stuff you don’t even think about, like what if they’re looking at porn or whatever and, like you say, it gets traced back to you, it’s insane.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yeah, it could be devastating.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong>\u00a0 I mean, the good people never even think about that stuff. \u00a0You know?<\/p>\nD:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yeah, and I think that we all as a society need to be just a little bit more careful and a little bit less trusting. \u00a0You don’t have to be paranoid, but you just have to make sure that you protect yourself from these people. \u00a0But there’s one last thing that I would like to talk about, actually there’s two things. \u00a0One is, the IRS for the state of Florida, Georgia, and D.C. is offering something called an identity protection number. \u00a0And so this is an additional number. \u00a0Kind of like we were talking about, just now. \u00a0We wish there was a way to protect yourself – and you can, this is a proactive step that you can take – you can go to their website at irs.gov\/getanippin, getanippin, to register. \u00a0After you verify your identity, they’ll give you an extra number that you can place on your tax returns, and you can use that and that will verify that that’s you. \u00a0So from that point forward, no one would be able to file a return in your name with an ipin.<\/p>\nK:<\/strong>\u00a0That is awesome. \u00a0I didn’t know you could do that yet. \u00a0One more thing learned. Ding, ding, ding.<\/p>\nD:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yeah, so I would suggest that everybody do that because it’s going to keep these identity theft problems from happening. \u00a0But there’s one other thing that I wanted to mention, and this has actually happened to me and it’s happened to a number of my clients, and that is you’ll get this phone call, usually a voicemail at the house, and it’s from someone with an East Indian accent and they’ll start saying they’re from the IRS and there’s going to be a lawsuit unless you call them back, or if you give them money, then you can make the lawsuit go away. \u00a0It actually happened to me, my wife called me, I was driving down to South Florida for business, and she was all shook up. \u00a0And we’ve been doing this business for over 16 years. \u00a0And she told me there’s somebody from the IRS and they’re threatening and making threats and I had her describe the call and I laughed and laughed and laughed. \u00a0And then another day, I was at home alone on a Saturday morning, and I got the call and I had a great time talking to the guy about all the things he was going to do and he was from the IRS and it was just a lot of fun. \u00a0But, those calls are fraudulent, they’re bogus, you don’t have to worry about them, you just need to hang up on them.<\/p>\n
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