Is ID.me the Future of Digital Identity, or a Privacy Nightmare?

In a world where crushing debt keeps you trapped, where living paycheck to paycheck has become your new normal, and where the dream of retirement seems impossibly out of reach, there's hope. Join financial evangelist Ralph Estep Jr. A man who's walked through the fire of financial failure and emerged stronger on the other side.

Welcome to Ask Ralph, the show where real world experience meets biblical truth. To break the bondage of financial despair.

Get ready to take control of your money, break free from the financial stress and align your resources with God's purpose for your life. This is Ask Ralph with Ralph Estep Jr.

Have you ever wondered if sharing your personal information online is truly safe? Or how to navigate a financial disaster when life throws you a curveball?

What about protecting your loved ones from falling victim to IRS scams that seem even more convincing each year? Well, tonight we're going to tackle these real life situations and questions submitted by you, our listeners and viewers. And trust me, you don't want to miss what we're about to uncover. From insider tips on protecting your identity to strategies from navigating insurance claims and spotting scams, we've got it all covered.

So stick with me because here's the deal. The decisions you make in moments of uncertainty can have long lasting impacts on your finances, your family, and your peace of mind. So whether it's safeguarding your social security number, managing a six figure insurance payout, or helping your elderly parents avoid scammers, tonight's episode is packed with actionable advice that could save you time, could save you money, and most of all could save you stress.

So grab your notebook or just lean in and let's dive into the answers you need to hear. Well welcome everybody. Thank you for tuning into tonight's show. I'm so glad for the opportunity to address some real life concerns that many of you face when it comes to taxes, or when it comes to finance, and protecting ourselves from scams. But let's get right to our Bible verse tonight.

And this Bible verse comes to us from the book of Proverbs. And before we dive in, I want to share this verse because it reminds us of the importance of wisdom and discernment in all things that we do. And it comes to us from Proverbs 4:7, and this is what it says. It says "The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it costs all you have, get understanding." Well, let's strive to seek that wisdom and understanding today as we discuss these important topics. Well, let's get to our gratitude statement. You know, I always like to start the show with some gratitude before we go any further. I just want to take a moment to express my gratitude.

I am so thankful for each of you who take the time to listen, to ask thoughtful questions and engage with this show. It's a privilege to walk alongside you as we navigate these important topics together. And we really are doing this together. Well, whether it's protecting your identity, supporting loved ones through financial challenges, or staying vigilant against scams, your trust and participation mean the world to me. And I'm truly grateful for the opportunity to serve and connect with each of you each week and if you listen to the daily show every day. Well, let's get right to our question. The first one we got in today. This one came to us from Pamela V. And this is what Pamela wrote.

Pamela said, "Dear Ralph, I went to irs.gov to obtain an ID PIN for tax purposes. My husband and I had our social security numbers put on the dark web. To obtain a PIN you sent me to ID.Me, and the terms of agreement and the terms and agreement and privacy notice are alarming. They can put any information you give them out [00:03:00] internationally.
They can market you and send info on services with cash back on merchandise. This does not sound safe or prudent. I was on the official IRS site." And that was signed by Pamela V

Well, Pamela, I want to start by saying thank you for your question. And listen, it's an important issue. Especially given how many of us are cautious with our personal information online.

But I want to break it down for you because it does seem a little unnerving when you actually sit down and you read those things that they put up there. Nobody reads those, right? You just scroll through and say, click here. But here's the deal. You need to understand this. Back in 2021, the IRS and a lot of government entities, I believe Social
Security Administration, and maybe the VA as well. They partnered with ID.me because they wanted an identification verification provider. So it is a legitimate third party service.

It's used by many government agencies. So first thing I want to tell you, Pam, is that,
yes, that is correct. That is the third party service.
And unfortunately, or fortunately, whatever you want to look at it, the IRS will not give you access to an irs.gov account if you don't have that ID.me. So you're kind of stuck with that. Now, it's true. ID.me collects significant personal data, but they do that for verification. They basically want to prove, or they want you to prove, that you are who you are.

And when you look at those terms of service, I heard it called TOS. You know, that's a thing when you're anywhere on the web, you get this button that says, do you agree to our terms of service and well, I think it's great that you read it. Most people just don't even look at it. They may scroll to the bottom because it makes you, but their terms of service are broad, but here's the thing.

The IRS contract with them does ensure that they have strict federal data protection requirements for any IRS related purposes. So I'm just going by what the IRS is telling me. When I go to the IRS site, [00:05:00] they're saying that the data is safe. They're saying that their contract with ID.me is very reasonable and it's okay to move forward with that.
Now you might be saying, Ralph, look, dude, I don't want to be involved with this at all, but here's the problem. There are a few alternatives but they're not great alternatives. You can visit the local IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center. That means you've got to make an appointment when they're in person. You can call the IRS.

I'll put the number up here. It's 800 908 4490. And that's a way you can request an IP PIN. Because that's really what I think you were going to do, Pam, is go get an IP PIN. It's interesting. I just recorded a show that I'll play next week about this whole IP PIN. Now, the other thing you can do if you wanted to file a form with the IRS, you can file form 15227
if you meet income and tax requirements. So here's the deal, Pamela, this is just the truth. This is the organization the IRS has partnered with. It's kind of take it or leave it, but here's what I'm encouraging you to do. If you want to take the in person option, that's possible. Especially if you've been through identity theft before. You might be like, Ralph, look, I don't want to deal with anything online.

I get it. I understand that. If you want to have an online account, then what you can do is you can go to ID.me and just provide them the minimum required information and then opt out of any marketing communications. So the IRS people are telling me you can opt out of those things. And then unfortunately, like you're going to have to do, you're going to have to monitor your credit reports to see if there's any kind of issues and catch them early. I really don't think there's going to be. I have a ton of clients who are on irs.gov. They went through the ID.me. Listen, this is the way the preferred way the IRS is communicating. It's the way you have an online account. And trust me, the benefits of having this online account far outweigh any kind of concerns you have as it comes to security.

But Pam, again, I think it's great that you've looked into that because a lot of, like I said, a lot of people just scroll through those terms of service and just like, Hey, it sounds good to me. What can you do? Now, I want to ask some reflection questions after we do each of these listener questions.

So one of the things that Pam brings out is how can you stay informed about the security of your personal information when working with government agencies? I think that's a valid concern. So one of the things you can do is you can, you can push back on them, go to their website, understand who their partners are.

Because like you said, Pam, you said at first I'm thinking, I think you were thinking that, well, Ralph sent me to some bogus website. You thought maybe they were going to scam your information, but no, you can just check and make sure that what you're seeing there is actually what the IRS wanted you to do.

Then there's another thing you can do. And I'm going to ask you this question. It's a second reflection question. Are there any steps you can take to monitor your financial accounts more closely? It's one of the things I talk about on the show all the time. You know, have those connections, have that online banking connection, take a look at it.

And number three, what strategies can you use to protect yourself from identity theft in the future? Cause I get it. If you've been a victim of this, I've done a couple of shows on this. This is a drastic thing and it takes a long time to get stuff resolved. So I understand your hesitancy, but I'm going to tell you, big picture, bottom line on your question, is if you want to have an online account with the IRS, the only way to do that is to use their preferred third party provider, which is ID.me. And like I said, I believe that the Social Security Administration is doing the same thing. A multitude of government agencies are using this because the truth is the old system, there was data breaches and there was problems. So at least this is, in my view, moving a little bit better forward.

Does anybody have any comments in the chat here about whether, you know, if you've used the ID.me system, or do you have some concerns about that system? Feel free to post those things in the comments. Well, let's move on to our second question tonight. And the second question is this. And it comes to us from, Oh, this one's from another listener and it says, "Ralph, I'm a regular listener and commenter on your Facebook page." Let me stop right there. We do have a Facebook insiders page where you can find out information about the show.

You can communicate with other people that are interested in this show. The way you get to that is if you go to askralphpodcast.com/group. Again, that's askralphpodcast.com/group. Now you can also do it through Facebook. Just look for the Ask Ralph Insiders Group, and then you can ask to be a member of the group.

But let me get back to the listener's question. So he says, "Ralph, I'm a regular listener and commenter on your Facebook page but I got thrown a serious curve. Our son lost his home in Altadena. That was the Eaton fire in California. Let me just say, I send out my prayers to everybody who's been impacted by that, but let me continue.

He and his family, plus pets, are physically fine. Well, that's a great thing. He called me yesterday, telling me his home insurance company has already disbursed a multi six figure amounts to pay him for the mortgage. In fact, 75 percent of his contents amount, money for rent, et cetera. They did not even ask him to sign anything.

I helped him walk through how to stash money of that, or how to stash most of that money in a money market fund. Cause we're in North Carolina, bottom line. Many are in the similar situations right now in the LA area. It sounds like his insurance company is doing everything right, but how do you deal with your insurance company in such a catastrophe?
Should he get additional professional legal assistance? I'm trying to help him walk through this, but any advice would be greatly appreciated. All the best." Then that was signed, Kevin. So Kevin, I want to just start by saying thank you for sharing your son's story. I'm so sorry to hear about that loss.

That's tough when you lose your home in those fires. And I'm looking at some of these images on TV and it's just absolutely terrible, but I'm also grateful that he and his family, along with their pets, cause hey, listen, pets are part of the family. You may have a comment, put it into the comment section, but I totally agree with that.

I'm just happy they're safe. But here's my advice. You asked me some advice on managing insurance claims, and I'm going to give you a few things that I think you really should do. Number one thing. Document everything. Take photos, take videos of all the damage, keep records of conversations with the insurance company and create an inventory of lost items.

That is super important. One of the things I'm going to say now, it's too late for your son, but if anyone else is tuned in and listening tonight, one of the things I definitely recommend you do, is have video, have pictures, have receipts of everything in your home. This way, in the terrible situation like we see here with these fires, you have information about what you had in your house, because here's the deal.

You have an insurance policy that states what they think you have in your house, but you're going to have to prove that. And if you've got pictures, I mean, just take your iPhone and just walk around the house, taking pictures of everything on the wall, taking pictures of the furniture, cameras, TVs, all your belongings, whatever they are, and then store that in a safe place.

Maybe you back up a copy and put it on a flash drive, you store it on the cloud, but save all that information because if you find yourself in the same situation, those things are going to become hugely valuable. Another thing you want to do, and this is directly for your son, Kevin. Save all the receipts for any temporary housing, whatever expenses he have.

Yes, the insurance company is cutting him a check, but I would suspect that some point they're going to say, well, we want you to prove what you've spent. You know, they're, they're being very proactive, which is fantastic because these people have lost everything. And it's beautiful that they're being proactive and doing it.
But again, save all those receipts, whatever that's for. Temporary housing. Maybe you're buying clothes, maybe you're buying incidentals that you need. Just hold on to those receipts. Second thing I'm going to encourage you to do is consider professional support. And you've kind of alluded to this.

One of the things that when I did the research for your question is they've recommended maybe hiring a public adjuster to maximize the claim if necessary. Now, here's the deal. You need to understand this up front. Those folks usually charge between 10 to 15 percent of the claim, but if they can get you more, then what the insurance company is offering, then that might be money well spent.

Another thing you want to do. Consult with a contractor to make sure that when the insurance company finally gives you some repair estimates, they use software to figure this out, but go to a contractor, maybe go to two or three contractors and make sure that the information is correct because the insurance companies, listen, I'm not bad mouthing the insurance companies.

Their goal was to pay you as little as possible. So make sure that what they're giving you is the correct amount. If you've got an insurance policy that gives you full replacement value, then I'm going to encourage you to make sure that that still fits into the model. Now, one of the other things I'm going to recommend is it's a great time to hire an attorney to review any settlement documents before you sign anything.

Now you said in your case, Kevin, your son hasn't had to sign anything which is fine, but at some point, I suspect the insurance company is going to come up with a final settlement. And I think it makes sense to hire an attorney to review that. Hey, it might cost you some money. But if you're talking about six figures worth of loss, Hey, if even if you spend a couple thousand dollars with the attorney, and I have no idea what it'll cost, I think that's a high number.

But I would definitely recommend speaking to that person and making sure you've got that dream team of people. Also want to speak to an accountant like myself about potential tax implications, because there could be implications for those insurance proceeds. I'm not going to get into them on tonight's show, but there could be.
So surround yourself with that dream team. Look at maybe hiring a public adjuster. Speak to an attorney about the claim and then talk to an accountant or somebody that in that area to understand the tax implications of that. Third thing I'm going to recommend is you've got to manage the insurance claim carefully.

Here's one thing, pro tip. Request a complete copy of the insurance policy, because here's the deal. A lot of people sign up for insurance, hey look, and I'm guilty of this myself. You get that homeowner's policy, and maybe you even met with an agent, a lot of times you're doing it over the phone or doing the internet, but go through that insurance policy, I mean, and read it line by line, make sure that you're getting your fair share for what, because insurance premiums are not cheap. So if you've paid for this insurance, go through it and make sure you're getting everything you're getting.

It sounds like they're already doing that for your son, Kevin. You told me they're paying off his mortgage. They're paying off for temporary living expenses. So it sounds like they're doing the right thing. I've heard some horror stories already on the news about how some insurance companies out in California, they're trying to figure out how they're not going to pay this.

So again, I'm not trying to bad mouth out the insurance companies. Another thing I'm going to recommend you do as part of that managing the insurance claim. Avoid rushing to settle. Now, again, you said your son's not in that position where they're trying to make him settle, but make sure you look at all of the contents, make sure they're giving you the replacement value for everything that was in that home.

I mean, down to whatever it is. At some point you might hit the maximum, what they're going to cover for your insurance claim, but do that and get everything in writing. That's the bottom line. Get every single piece. If it's an email, if it's a text, if it's a letter, keep it all, document everything and get it all in writing.

And then number four, and you've kind of alluded to this, Kevin. It's that whole financial management side. And I think you're right, Kevin, giving your son the advice to move that money into a money market account is very wise, but again, keep detailed records of how the insurance proceeds are spent. Which leads me to my reflection questions for this particular question from this listener, Kevin.

And again, thank you so much for sending it in. And again, I send my prayers to your son and to his family. Thank God nobody was injured in his family. And I sent my prayers to anybody else who's been impacted by that. But let's talk about some of the things we should think about as it relates to this.

Number one, how can you prepare yourself and your family for a financial emergency? Because think about it. You could be in a situation where if your insurance company isn't doing that right away, do you have that emergency fund? I see Mark's in the chat room today. Mark has a podcast called Practical Prepping. You can get to it by going to practicalprepping.info. Mark talks about how to prepare for things. I'm very certain he's probably done a show about this. You know, those natural disasters. Maybe you don't classify as a natural disaster, but I think it kind of was, right. But you have to be prepared for that financially.

Make sure you've got that emergency fund. If you're in a bad position financially, and then all of a sudden they say to you, well, your house is burned to the ground, it sounds harsh. Go rent an apartment or go something like that. Well, if you don't have the money to do that and your insurance company is not [00:18:00] sitting there with a check ready to write that for you, you better have that emergency fund or at least have a credit card that you can use to do that.

So that's my first reflection question. Second one, do you have trusted professionals, like that accountant we talked about? That's me. Or somebody that's in your area. Do you have that attorney? You need to have these people lined up before something like this happens to prepare for that. Have that accountant, have that relationship with the accountant, have that relationship with the attorney, have that relationship with your insurance company.

I did a show a few months ago about that. You should know your insurance agent. This idea of going and buying insurance online, check the box here, fill out the online form, I think it's a bad plan. You need to understand what your insurance covers. You need to understand if there's anything that you need to buy extra.

A lot of people have collections. Some people have gun collections. You need to find out, are those things covered by your insurance? It's not the time to find that out once you had that tornado hit your house or that hurricane came through or that fire ravaged it, or you were robbed. You need to know those things.

And that's why you need to have a relationship with those professionals so that when something does happen, you have somebody you can go to. And my third reflection question, what steps can you take to understand your insurance policy better before a disaster occurs? Yeah. Here's the thing you need to understand. I'm not an attorney. I don't play one on TV. I'm not an insurance agent. I think you need to really understand, and I'm going to use a word out here, the legal ease of this. Because here's the thing you need to understand. These insurance contracts are written for the benefit of the insurance company.

That's just a fact, right? Insurance companies are in business to make money. That's fine. That's fair. They're taking risk. But understand the components of that insurance policy before this happens. So Kevin, wrapping up, I just want to say thank you for sharing that. And my heart goes out to everybody impacted that it sounds like you're giving your son some very sage advice.

So he is smart to take your advice. And I pray for him. I pray for his family. I pray that they're able to restore their lives back to what it was before this disaster. And Mark, I see you in the chat. You haven't had any problems with ID.me. That's fantastic, Mark. And that's kind of the experience that I've had as well.

Mark, I haven't, I haven't had any issues. Now I have had clients who have struggled to get through that ID.me process, because let me just tell you, it's not a simple process. You have to do things that you put in your email address and phone numbers, and you need to make sure that the phone number is attached to your name somehow.

Then as I recall, and it's been a couple of years since I set up my ID.me, but I want to say you had to do like a screen share or screen chat on your phone or something with somebody so they could compare, because you would upload like a copy of your driver's license and they want to see that you're the right person.

So they'll do like a screen share. It was simple. Once I got somebody to do it, it wasn't a big deal. It didn't take very long. You know, I set aside like a half an hour to 45 minutes to do it. See, the good news is once you've got it done, you're set and you've got that level of protection. So again, feel free to put your comments or questions in the chat and let's get on to our third question tonight.

And this one, I didn't get a name with this one, but I thought this was a really good question. It's funny because this week after I got this question, the IRS actually put out a communication to all of us professionals about this. So let's jump into this question. It says, "Hi, I've been hearing about scammers pretending to be IRS agents demanding gift card payments. My elderly mother was recently contacted by someone claiming she owed back taxes and needed to pay immediately with gift cards from Target. While I stopped her in time, I'm wondering, what are the red flags that show it's definitely an IRS scam when gift cards are involved? I'd like to help protect others in my church community from falling victim to these schemes."

Thank you. And so, thank you for that question. Jumped a little bit ahead there. I appreciate this because it's such an important topic and to think about it, you're talking about your mom and your mom's an elderly person I'm assuming, right? And I feel your heart in this because you're trying to protect these vulnerable members of our communities, our elderly.

And the problem is when I read about these statistics of these things, they generally do target elderly people because they're trusting people and they're scared of the IRS. Listen, here's the deal. I'm gonna tell you a funny story. This has probably been 10 years ago. Just starting off my practice, probably been longer than that.

Now I think about it, let's just say, let's just say 15 years ago. It doesn't really matter. I had a client, they had an in home daycare center. And I was out seeing clients one day and at the time my wife was working in the office and my wife calls me, she goes, you got to call such and such. And I'm not going to use names, but you got to call such and such cause she's scared to death that this IRS agent just called her and he's going to come and arrest her. And I said, what in the world? So got the phone number, called her back. And I said to her, I said, Hey, what's going on? She goes, Ralph. She says, right now I'm at the grocery store. I said, okay, what's going on?

She goes, well, I was at home and my cell phone went off. And this person said they were from the IRS and that they were coming to put me in handcuffs and take me away for tax fraud. And I said, okay, well, are you aware of any issues with your tax returns? And I knew the answer because I was doing her tax returns probably for 10 years before that.

I said, you don't have any outstanding tax issues. And she goes, right. But you don't understand. I was scared to death. So I left my house real quick and I went to the grocery store where they couldn't find me. And I said, wait a second. I said, this person called you and demanded you, they wanted her to make a payment with a credit card over the phone.
Said they were from the IRS. Big red flags. I said, listen, go back home. This is a scam. So let's talk about what those red flags are that recognize IRS scams right away. Number one thing, if they ask you for immediate payment, hang up the phone. I'm going to get to what you do here in a second. The IRS will never, ever ask you for immediate payment.

They're just not going to do it. They're never going to demand immediate payment over the phone or create any kind of sense of urgency. They're not going to call you and tell you that they're coming to arrest you. Because here's the secret. If you're a tax cheat and you're a tax fraud and you've been doing tax evasion, they're going to come and arrest you.
They're not going to call you ahead of time and say, oh, hey, Mr. Jones, we're going to come this afternoon and arrest you because you haven't paid your taxes or we're going to charge you with tax evasion. It doesn't work that way. The IRS guys with the guns and the gold badges show up and they, they hoss you away.

That's the way it works. So that's the first red flag. If they do that, you know immediately to run the other direction. I see we got a comment here from Mark. Let's see here. What does he say here? Mark, let's put your comment over here and it says, the IRS does not take gift cards from Target. That's a fact.

They send mail, they don't call you on your cell phone. Mark, that is a very good point. Absolutely right. So that actually leads me to the second thing I was going to talk about, and that is payment via gift cards. Listen, the IRS does not accept payments through gift cards. They just don't do it. You know, there are not some guy the IRS saying, look, Hey, today we got to get some target gift cards.

We want to get some Walmart gift cards. We want to get some Amazon gift cards. They just don't do it. They're not going to ask you to pay through gift cards. They're not going to ask you to pay through a prepaid debit card. They're not going to ask you to pay with cryptocurrency. It doesn't work that way.

And they're not going to ask you to pay over the phone. They just don't do that. So if someone calls you and says that they're from the IRS and the next word out of their mouth is, we want you to pay your back taxes with a Target gift card, you know, this is kind of mean, but maybe you want to get a whistle and blow it in their ear and then hang up the phone.

I know that sounds harsh, but they're scammers. They're clowns and they're trying to take advantage of vulnerable people. So second thing, if they're telling you, you got to pay with a gift card, it's not legitimate. Third thing, if they threat to arrest or make legal action against you. Because here's the thing, like I said, if they're going to do that, they're going to knock at your door and they're going to say, Mr. Jones, we're here to arrest you. And they're going to have handcuffs and they're going to have badges and guns. And then you hire an attorney, you deal with it. But see, here's the thing. Scammers use these fear tactics. The IRS doesn't do that. Now the IRS might send you some doggone threatening letters.

I've seen some letters, an immediate intent to levy. We're going to take your money. We're going to charge you with this. I get it. But they don't go out and threaten to arrest you. They don't threaten that legal action over the phone at least. They're going to communicate with you through official letters, not threats.

And here's the thing you need to understand. I say this to clients all the time, clients come to me and say, Hey Ralph, I don't know you very well. A friend of mine told me about you. I got a big tax problem. I just got this letter from the IRS in the mail and it says that I got 30 days to respond or they're going to levy my bank account.

And I say to them, I said, okay, well, where's the other five letters you got before this? What do you mean? I said, listen, the IRS doesn't just send you a 30 day demand for payment. It doesn't work that way. The IRS, listen, this is the truth. The IRS, it takes them forever to accomplish things like this. If, let's just say, for example, let me walk you through a simple example.

You file your tax return for 2023. That was due last year. Okay. Let's just say you filed it. You finally got around to doing it in October. But you didn't send any money with it. Let's say you owe a couple thousand dollars, you owe two grand, okay? The IRS is going to process your tax return, it's probably going to take them four to six weeks to process your tax return.

Once they do that, they're going to send you a letter that says, Hey, Mr. Jones, we really appreciate you filing your tax return, but guess what? You still owe us money and because you didn't pay, we're going to add some other fees to it. We're going to add some penalties. We're going to add some interest. So here's what you owe.

Please get in contact with us. Send us payment. You have by this date to make the payment. Then the next thing that happens is 90 days go by. Then they send you another letter and that letter might say, Hey, Mr. Jones, we still haven't heard from you. And guess what? You still owe us $2,000 plus the penalties we added, plus the interest.

And guess what? Now, listen, we're going to give you 90 days and if you don't do anything in 90 days, we're going to send an intent to levy notice. Okay. So that's letter number two. First of all, you filed your tax returns. You know you owed the money. Second time. Think of first letter. Mr. Jones, you owe us money.

Third, third contact, Mr. Jones, yo, where's the money? You know about this. You still haven't paid us. In 90 days, we're going to send you an intent to levy notice. So this person is sitting in front of me saying, Ralph, I had no idea about this. This is nonsense. So, they're not going to request that information.

They're not going to call you. Another thing you want to watch out for, and let's see, we've got another comment, let me pop this one up here. Salty water says this. What does salty water say? When I get these calls, I tell them I'm home and I'll be waiting at the curb. That's a good way to handle it.

That's a great way to handle it. You know, one of the things that I've done, cause it's funny, cause I do this for a living. I've gotten these calls on my cell phone and it'll be somebody with a strange accent, usually from Nigeria or the Ivory Coast and you know, they'll tell me about how I owe money and I'll say to them, Oh, that's fantastic.

It's really good you're reaching out to get that. What is your badge number? See, here's the thing people don't understand. Every person that works at the IRS has a badge number. It's their contact number. And if they're a scammer, maybe they got wise to this, but the last time, last few times I got the call, I said, what's your badge number?

Click dead air. Cause they knew I got them. Let's move on to the next thing. The IRS is never going to request personal information. They don't ask you for your sensitive information over the phone. They just don't do that. If someone calls you and says, Hey, Mr. Jones, I'm calling from the IRS. We got your tax information here.

It looks like we've got some questions. Can you give me your social security number so I can confirm it's you? Big red flag, set off the sirens, they're scamming you. But the sad part is I've heard of people, especially elderly people, and I'm not picking on older people because I'm 52. I'm getting to be that age myself.

God willing, I got a few more years in me, but they prey on these vulnerable people. Another thing they do is what we call caller ID spoofing. You got to be cautious of this because here's the thing. My wife and I get these calls all the time. These scammers can make their number appear legitimate.

So if you get a number and it might say government or it might say IRS or something like that, you can't just assume that that's correct. So if you do get a call, verify it directly with the IRS, which is why I go back to the first question of the night. And that is, have you set up that irs.gov account for your tax return?

Because real simple way to resolve this is you can log in through the legitimate site using ID.me and look and see, does the IRS, do you owe the IRS money? You know, the truth is you could actually owe them money. You don't know about it because maybe somebody filed a fictitious tax return on you or some kind of fraud.

So if you have that account, it's important to know that. And number six on my list here, no official correspondence. If you've not gotten any official, like that client of mine is sitting at the grocery store, I said to her, I said, Hey, have you gotten letters? Have you gotten notices? Well, no, Ralph, I haven't gotten any of those things.

Well then why in the world do you think the IRS just out of the blue decide to call you today? If you don't receive a prior written notice, it's likely a scam. All right. So I've given you a bunch of information. Now we have the fun part. What do you do if you suspect a scam? Here's my favorite part of the night.

If you suspect it's a scam, hang up immediately. Let's see how fast you can do it. I used to like it when I was a kid, right? I had those phones that actually you had a physical phone. Now we've got the cell phone, your tablet, whatever. But I had a phone where you, I remember many times, my mom would get upset, like she was talking on the phone, and I was a young kid, my sister and I are bouncing off each other, screaming and hollering.

My mom used to say all the time, every time I get on the phone you two start carrying on. But the thing that was cool about those phones is they actually had, you know, you'd hang them up. You could hear that whack. Hang up the call. If you get somebody saying that they're calling from the IRS and you think it's a scam because it is a scam, hang up the phone.

Second thing I want you to do, and a lot of people don't do this because it takes time, but report the scam to the IRS at their official website. They actually have on their website a place where you can report these scams because they will shut these folks down. Third thing, like you mentioned in your listener question. Talk to your relatives about this.
Talk to your elderly folks about this. Talk to people at your church. Talk to people around your neighborhood. Say, I heard this great guy, Ralph, he's got a wonderful podcast show.

You can even watch it live on Tuesday nights. You can tune in every day and tell them about those red flags because you want to help protect your community.
That's exactly what we're doing here. This is why I do what I do. So again, I hope I've made the point. Watch out for those scams. So let's get to the reflection questions as it relates to this. And the first one goes right along with what I just said. How can you help educate others in your community about common scam tactics?

Maybe volunteer in your church group. Maybe volunteer in your neighborhood. Have a discussion about, Hey, let's keep an eye on the elderly folks. Let's make sure they're not getting scammed. You know, work with your own parents. Maybe you've got some elderly aunts and uncles or wherever that is. And be sure to tell them about that.

Second thing, second reflection question. What steps can you take to verify the legitimacy of communications from the IRS or other agencies? I've given you a hint there. Get an account with IRS.gov. Yes, you got to go through ID.me, and if you don't like that, I don't know what to tell you. Go to their office then, spend time doing that, go meet with somebody face to face.

I'm cool with that. If that's what you want to do, you're scared of the internet. I get it. A lot of scams going on out there, but understand how to verify legitimacy of that communication. If you haven't gotten a notice from the IRS, chances are it's a scam. And number three. And I think we all need to focus on this.

Are you taking time to check in with elderly family members about potential scams they may encounter? It breaks my heart every year, I'll have two or three elderly clients to come in and I had one this tax season and it really bothered me. She came in and she sat down in front of me, and one of the questions I always ask when I'm doing people's tax returns, Hey, did you get any notices from the state?

Any notices from the IRS? So on and so forth. In this particular case, she got a letter from the IRS and it turned out it was a legitimate letter, and she goes, yeah, I got this letter from the IRS. It said I owed 'em $2,000. And I said, okay. What did you think about that? She goes, Ralph, I'm so scared of the IRS.

I wrote them a check and sent it the next day. I said, well, why'd you do that? Why didn't you call me? Well, you know, I know you're busy, Ralph, and I didn't want to bother you. And I, you know, I read about all these things that people getting locked up because of the IRS for tax evasion. So I just sent him the check.

And I said to her, I said, I wish you had called me. And I said, we did a little digging into it. In this particular case, a really interesting situation. I had given her quarterly estimates to send in with each quarter she had to say, I talked about that last week on the show, actually. Estimated tax. I gave her four coupons to send in each of them were $2,000 and I'm gonna get to your point there and Mr. Whiskey in just a second. Thanks for joining the show. So the IRS sent her a notice saying she owed $2,000. I said, well, that's interesting. I said, let me ask you a question. How did you pay them your quarterly estimate? She goes, well, Ralph, I sent in checks and I said, okay, well, did you get the canceled checks from your bank?

Well, it's funny you asked that, Ralph, because I remember the third quarter check, was never cashed. And I said, okay, well then that explains it, but you should have called me. Because one of the things I would have encouraged them to do is look and make sure they had all the payments. But anyway, check in with those people, make sure that they've got assistance and they've got help.

All right. So let's see, we've got a comment here by Mr. Whiskey and I was on Mr. Whiskey's show a few months ago. He did a great job and that's what he said. And he's got a podcast called Couple O' Nukes and it says, I recently got scammed with a fake BOI form from an annual information update. It looked beyond legitimate.

Scammers are getting smarter. Yeah, that's the truth. And what you're talking about there is the Beneficial Owner Information. And this thing has been like a bouncing ball in the court. So let me take a minute and explain it. And thank you for your comment, Mr. Whiskey. I really do appreciate it. BOI, Beneficial Ownership Information.
The U.S. Department of justice put a law at Congress actually passable, but the U.S. Department of Justice isn't enforcing this. And basically what it means is if you have an entity, if you've got a business in this United States, that's not you personally, it's an LLC, it's an S Corp.

It's one of those things. C Corp. You've got to register that business with the, what's called FinCEN. Basically they want to know who owns the business, who's responsible for the business, and they do that online. Well, and it doesn't surprise me, Mr. Whiskey, that we got some scams because of this.

Now, right now, that has been put on hold. There's a stay on this. You don't have to do this. It's going to get litigated through, I think, the Supreme Court, because there's a lot of people arguing that it violates your rights against, you know, personal information, which I tend to agree with. But you're right.

So what it did is it opens up the door for these scammers. Because you think about what I just said to you. You got to register. You got to, you got to provide your name. You got to provide your social security number. You got to provide your date of birth, your address. And the best part, you got to upload copies of your driver's license front and back.

So Mr. Whiskey, you're absolutely right. Look, you're right. They're getting sophisticated. The scary part, and I work with AI all the time. AI is making it easier on them too, because they can go out and find information. They can clone voices. They can do all that stuff. So be on the lookout and Mr. Whiskey, I do really appreciate your comment because that is the absolute truth.

Wait a minute. We got another one here. Let's see here. Let's go here and say, Oh yeah, they reversed it twice. That's sad. It's true. It has added to the confusion. This thing was originally supposed to happen by the end of the year. We started back, and this is the BOI thing we're talking about. We started back at the beginning of the year telling our clients, Hey, guess what?

There's this law. I'm not sure what's going to play out because I thought all along it was going to get turned upside down by the courts, but here's what you need to do. Provide us this information and we'll do this filing for you because here's the problem. If you don't file, and it's a one time filing unless something changes.

Because if you don't file, they put in a penalty system. It's 500 bucks a day, the penalty. That's pretty scary. Because here's the thing. They want to know who owns what businesses. If you've got a corporation in this country, they want to know who owns it. You know, you can't hide behind that, the corporations. But you're right.

So then anyway, they say this thing is going to get implemented. A court as I recall down in Texas said, no, wait a second. This is unconstitutional. We're putting what they call a stay on it. You don't have to do it. So then the government turns around and says, no, no, no, we don't want to stay. They went to another court and another court said, oh no, no, you got to do this, but that, that automatic stays got to get put aside.

And then a third court got involved and the third court said, oh no, no, no, this is unconstitutional. I can't do this. So I honestly don't know how this is going to play out. Here's what I'm telling my clients. You can do this legitimately. You can go right to the Department of Justice website.

It's a very secure place. And then make a decision. Listen, if you think it's no big deal to disclose your information, then do it. At this point, my professional opinion is wait and see what the court does. Now, here's the thing you need to understand by doing that though. You got to pay attention to the news because if the courts decide to say, yes, this is going to have to be done.

The last time they did that, they only gave people 14 days to make the connection. Now, another court stepped in. I honestly think this is going to either get handled by the new Trump administration. Big win for Trump, by the way, I'm a big Trump fan, or it's going to get to the Supreme Court and they're going to Supreme Court and say, wait a second, this is ridiculous.

I hope. But anyway, thank you for your comment, Mr. Whistler. Yeah, because they've made it confusing because I have had dozens of clients call me and say, Ralph, do we do it? Do we not do it? Should we do it? Should we not do it? It's a whole mess. So anyway, but I appreciate that comment. Does anybody else have any comments or questions tonight?

And I really do appreciate all the feedback tonight. I think we've had a great show and, and a big takeaways. Like I said, ID.me, it's legitimate. It's okay to do it. Limit the amount of information you put out there. And if you want to have an account with the IRS, you got to do it. Second thing we talked about the California fires and insurance.
I gave you some great information about that. Again, Kevin, my heart goes out to your family, to your son's family and everyone else that's been impacted by that. And third thing we talked about was the IRS scams.

So let's talk about something else. If you found today's show helpful, I want to encourage you to do something for me.

I want you to share the Ask Ralph show, share it with your friends, share it with your family. Just send them to askralph.com. I do a daily show. Every day, I do a show. I write a blog post. So maybe you don't like to watch. Maybe you don't like to listen. You can read. We do YouTube shorts. We do videos, the whole nine yards.

You can also encourage them to join in every Tuesday night. Yeah. We're getting into tax season now. A lot of people have tax questions. Every Tuesday night at 7, I'm going to be here. I'm going to open up for your questions. I'll answer your tax questions to the best of my ability. I can give you some helpful advice.

I'll give you answers to your pressing questions. So encourage other people to join us, mark your calendars because I'd love to see you here as well. Well, let me close by saying this. I thank all of you for listening today. Let's take a moment to be grateful for the resources and tools we have to stay informed to protect ourselves. As we navigate life's challenges, like identity theft protection, disaster recovery, and recognizing scam, let's remember the words of Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. And it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways, submit to Him, and he will make your paths straight."

So my friends, I say this to you. Stay vigilant, stay informed, stay connected to your community, and if you've got more questions or concerns, don't hesitate to reach out. You can visit me at askralph.com. If you have a question for the show, you can go right there and do it. I am so grateful for an opportunity to share this time with you.
So until next time. Stay financially savvy, take care, and may God bless you abundantly.

Thank you for joining us on the Ask Ralph show and with a simple click to subscribe, we'll invite you back to our next episode. And remember, financial issues don't have to be complicated. Just Ask Ralph.

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