Watch out for fake 1099-G tax forms

Nine It’s the last weekend to get your taxes done before Monday’s deadline and just in time, a new scam our Jason Stujanke hadn’t seen before. A Channel 9 viewer told him about it, and now he wants to make sure you don’t take the bait. If you received unemployment, the state sends you this. What’s called a 1099G form. It’s for tax purposes, but watch out for this kind, a fake one. I was very stressed, very frustrated. But we’ll call her Melissa. She asked us not to show her face or use her name. You don’t know who these people are who do these scams. They could be just lazy, no good, nobody, just trying to get money, get people’s information, but at the same time you don’t know who they are, she says whoever it was sent her this. It looks like a real 1099 G The formatting is neat and clean. The grammar is correct. In fact, the scammer may have copied an actual 1099 G, so you got this in the mail. And basically it said that you had gotten unemployment from Colorado. And I assume that was not true, right? Exactly. But talk about Erie. She told me the scammer did enough homework to know, one, she had lived in Colorado at one point, and two, her new address here in North Carolina to mail her the form. They want you to think it’s identity theft to make you panic. And I believe their goal is to get you to scan the QR codes and input all your personal information and then that way they can perform the identity. And she’s probably right, some sort of phishing scam. But she was smart enough to stop there and not fall for it. It’s still frustrating that people are getting away with this and trying to scare people. So if you get a 1099G form and have any doubts, do this contact your state directly. Now, I’d start with the unemployment agency in your state as opposed to the Department of Revenue. So I put the contact information for both North and South Carolina’s on our News app for you. In North Charlotte, Jason Stuzanki, Channel 9 Eyewitness News.