If you’re ever contacted by phone or email by the IRS, it’s probably not them.

The latest common scam is for tax id thieves to file a fraudulent return in your name, but actually have the bogus refund deposited to your personal bank account.  Then they call you pretending to be IRS, to let you know the deposit was a mistake, and asking you oh so kindly to please return the funds.  But the check won’t be made out to Department of the Treasury, and the address won’t be one of the seven IRS service centers throughout the country.  They might not even ask for a check, sometimes they want you to send a prepaid debit card.  (As if IRS would ever want you to pay anything that way!)

If this happens to you, you’re already a tax identity theft victim!  Don’t compound the problem further by following their instructions.  Contact the IRS right away to report what happened.  If you feel up to it, you could play along with the caller to jot down all the info about how to make out your check and where to mail it, that could come in handy as IRS tries to track down the culprits.

But either way, that deposit in your account is going to be a problem and you’ll have to work it out with the real IRS how to resolve it.  Don’t plan on keeping your windfall!